Suicide Intervention in Schools: If Not School Counselors, Then Who?

Youth suicide rates continue to rise each year. School counselors play an essential role in preventing suicide within K-12 schools. After the publication of the article, “Suicide Assessments: The Medical Profession Affirms School Counselors’ Truth,” in 2021 by Dr. Carolyn Stone, some confusion surfaced regarding professional school counselors’ responsibilities and liabilities around issues of suicide. To provide clarification, the role and training of school counselors are highlighted to provide evidence for their place in suicide risk assessment. Ethical implications and previous legal cases are provided to inform the profession. Training/supervision recommendations for counselor educators are also discussed

School Counselor Suicide Response: A Final Rejoinder

In this article, we provide a summary of responses to Gallo and Wachter Morris (2022). We provide additional considerations based upon contributing authors’ perspectives and concluding thoughts on how to move forward on issues specific to school counselors’ roles in suicide prevention, assessment, and intervention in K-12 schools, as well as recommendations for pieces to consider for school counselor educators and practicing professional school counselors

Crisis in the schools : crisis, crisis intervention training, and school counselor burnout

"In the course of a school year, schools may face a number of crisis situations, including suicidality, child abuse and neglect, violence, and natural disasters that may impact individual students or create school-wide crises (Collins & Collins, 2005; Mathai, 2002). Each of these crises can pose a threat to student and school safety and, therefore, requires swift and precise action. In addition to the potential lethality of these situations, they also can take an emotional toll on school personnel, potentially leading to increased levels of burnout (Collins & Collins). Despite the prevalence of crisis situations in schools, there is a dearth of literature referencing school crisis intervention. To date, researchers have not considered important issues such as training in crisis intervention, adequacy of preparation, and self-perceived skills that are necessary to provide crisis intervention in the schools. Because schools serve as the primary provider of child and adolescent mental health services (Burns et al. 1995; Hoagwood & Erwin, 1997), limited training in crisis intervention may leave the professional school counselor less than adequately prepared for the crises they encounter in their schools (Allen et al., 2002). The current study examined the impact of crisis related issues (type, frequency, and training) on school counselor burnout in order to describe any potential links between level and perceived adequacy of training, perception of crisis intervention efficacy, frequency of crises encountered, self-perceived crisis intervention skills, and level of burnout experienced. Specifically, results indicated that school counselors worked with a variety of individual crisis situations multiple times during the previous year, but may have gaps in their training experiences regarding crisis topics. On average, participants found crisis training helpful, and some types of crisis training were negatively correlated with levels of burnout. Findings of this study may inform further research on the potential relationships between crisis training, crisis frequency, and school counselor burnout. Counselor educators and school counselors may use these findings to explore ways to best prepare school counselors for crisis intervention. This exploration may ultimately help current and future school counselors both provide effective crisis intervention and prevent their own burnout."--Abstract from author supplied metadata

Special Educators and Nonsuicidal Self-Injurious Behavior: Self-Injury Training, Exposure, and Self-Efficacy

Nonsuicidal self-injurious behavior (NSSIB) is one of the most perplexing and challenging behaviors special educators come across in their schools. Thus, there is a need for special educators to be equipped with information regarding NSSIB to help identify students with disabilities who engage in these behaviors and provide them with appropriate support or referrals. This study examined the effectiveness of training received by 390 special educators on NSSIB and their self-efficacy regarding the training. Results revealed that although many special educators serve students who engage in self-injurious behaviors, many did not receive training on how to implement strategies for students who self-injure. Those special educators who received training were more confident in their abilities to work with students who self-injured compared with those special educators who did not receive training. Implications, limitations, and future research areas are discussed

The case for interprofessional education in teacher education and beyond

In many PreK-12 school environments, individuals with a variety of professional identities and roles provide services to students. Typically, these individuals are trained with minimal interaction with each other, yet they must work cooperatively with each other in the schools. Interprofessional education (IPE) provides a model whereby students in different disciplines learn to collaborate. This article describes the origins and current status of IPE in the health professions; suggests strategies for applying IPE to educator training; describes a promising example IPE project involving two distinct school-based professionals, pre-service special educators and school counsellors in training, including outcomes documented through student reflections; and offers implications for implementing and sustaining IPE in schools of education

Empathy and care within engineering: qualitative perspectives from engineering faculty and practicing engineers

The purpose of this study was to investigate how empathy and care look within an engineering context from the perspective of (1) existing literature (2) engineering faculty and (3) practicing engineers. The project employed three separate, but interrelated studies, including a summative content analysis of the existing literature, a consensual qualitative research analysis of small group interviews with the engineering faculty, and a consensual qualitative research analysis of written responses from practicing engineers to an open-ended question about empathy and care. Thematic analyses of all three studies demonstrated that although empathy and care appear to have a place within engineering and engineering education – particularly given the current trends in engineering towards sustainability, team-oriented design work, and the renaissance engineer of tomorrow – it appears that conversations and awareness of these two constructs may not often be explicitly stated within the literature or frequently addressed by academic and professional engineers. Results from this study help define the role, benefits, and challenges of framing empathy and care within the engineering field. Our analysis and interpretation regarding how these findings parallel and depart from the existing conceptualizations of empathy and care is specified, and implications for engineers and the practice of engineering in general are discussed

Crisis in the Curriculum? New Counselors' Crisis Preparation, Experiences, and Self-Efficacy

Professional counselors are responsible for providing crisis assessment, referral, and intervention (Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs, 2009); however, little is known about their preparation and experiences in these areas. This study examined new professional counselors' (N= 193) crisis intervention preparation, crisis intervention self-efficacy, and crisis intervention experiences. Although participants had limited crisis preparation during their master's programs, most engaged in crisis intervention during their field experiences. Implications for continuing education and counselor education are explored

Person-centered educational practices in an urban alternative high school: the Black male perspective

This study used phenomenology/consensual qualitative research to investigate the experiences of six Black male students in an urban alternative high school that focused on person-centered and culturally relevant educational practices. Findings reveal the importance of student and staff relationships, the development of student self-awareness, and culturally sensitive pedagogy. Results add to the support of person-centered educational practices paired with culturally relevant curriculum in the education of impoverished Black male youth. Implications for counselors are discussed

Integrating Crisis Theory and Individual Psychology: An Application and Case Study

Crisis intervention skills are essential tools for clinicians working with clients who are experiencing traumatic life events or are in a state of acute crisis. Although some early counseling theorists addressed interventions with the underlying psychological processes of suicidal clients, general theories of crisis have rarely been integrated with commonly used theories of counseling or psychology. In this article, Individual Psychology and Crisis Theory are described as complementary theories that can augment clinical work with clients in crisis. Illustrated by a case study, the basic assumptions of Individual Psychology and Crisis Theory are described, integrated, and applied to the Six-Step Model of Crisis Intervention (James, 2008). Implications and areas for future research are described

Insights from industry: a quantitative analysis of engineers' perceptions of empathy and care within their practice

This study focuses on two seldom-investigated skills or dispositions aligned with engineering habits of mind – empathy and care. In order to conduct quantitative research, we designed, explored the underlying structure of, validated, and tested the reliability of the Empathy and Care Questionnaire (ECQ), a new psychometric instrument. In the second part, we used the ECQ to explore the perceptions of empathy and care of alumni/ae of an internationally ranked US institution, along with how perceptions differed by work experience and gender. Results show that participants perceived empathy and care to be important in multiple respects, most notably in relational aspects of engineering practice. Engineers with more engineering experience were more likely to perceive empathy and care as existing in engineering practice and as important to their work. While these phenomena are sometimes depicted as feminine qualities, we found no gender differences among our respondents