The Role of School Counselors in Meeting Students\u27 Mental Health Needs: Examining Issues of Professional Identity

The professional identity of school counselors has evolved over time. This article traces the historical context driving this evolution, and suggests it is time for the profession to conjoin the roles of educational leader and mental health professional. This proposal is prompted by heightened awareness of unmet student mental health needs, referrals that go unmet, school counselors displaced by other mental health providers in schools, the potential loss of the unique school counselor role, and the natural link between the mental health professional role and the array of personal-social factors that impact student achievement. A conjoint professional school counselor identity that includes the roles of both educational leader and mental health professional positions school counselors to better respond to all students, including those with mental health needs. This article discusses potential roadblocks and offers suggestions for action

Spotlighting Stigma and Barriers: Examining secondary Students’ Attitudes toward School Counseling Services

Student attitudes toward accessing school counseling services were the focus of a survey of 3,584 middle school and high school students. Respondents identified barriers to seeking help from school counselors, including stigma, a desire to manage problems themselves, a lack of a positive relationship with their school counselor, and a concern that the counselor would not keep disclosures confidential. This study also examined the impact of gender, age, and race/ethnicity on students’ willingness to seek help from their school counselor. We present implications for practice and future research

Confidentiality vs. Sharing

This is a presentation of a breakout session co-conducted by Rick Auger, Nick Abel, and Brandie Oliver at the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) annual conference in Boston, Massachusetts, in July of 2019

Happylife

Happylife was commissioned as part of the ‘IMPACT!’ research exhibition funded by the EPSRC. The project brought designers and scientists together to explore the potential impact of engineering and physical sciences on the economy, public policy, culture, and our everyday lives. Auger collaborated with Aberystwyth University Computer Science Department (AUCS), whose research project, in partnership with the Home Office and HM Revenue and Customs, was to develop new informatics technologies to assist in the policing of national borders. Happylife speculated on how AUCS’s research could make the transition from the context of national security into a family home, examining how passive-profiling techniques could be employed to display and mediate the most private and emotive aspects of family life. The novelty of this approach lies in shifting design ‘upstream’ from where it normally operates, exposing technological research to critique much earlier in the developmental process. Happylife is currently undergoing further research in collaboration with AUCS and Shenyang Jianzhu University in China; this iteration will see the technology installed in a Chinese family home for a test period. The project also inspired the group at Aberystwyth to think beyond the context of their original research to write a new research proposal, with Auger and the Mental Health Foundation, examining the impact of their technology when applied to mobile communication and social networks

20 Strategies to Help Students with Mental Health Needs

Learning session co-conducted at the annual conference of the Minnesota School Counselor Association, Brainerd, MN. 2012, May

The Role of the School Counselor in meeting Student’s Mental Health Needs: Overcoming Barriers and seizing Opportunities

Learning session co-presented at the annual conference of the Center for School Mental Health, Pittsburgh, PA. 2014, September

The Density Profiles of Massive, Relaxed Galaxy Clusters. II. Separating Luminous and Dark Matter in Cluster Cores

We present stellar and dark matter (DM) density profiles for a sample of seven massive, relaxed galaxy clusters derived from strong and weak gravitational lensing and resolved stellar kinematic observations within the centrally-located brightest cluster galaxies (BCGs). In Paper I of the series, we demonstrated that the total density profile derived from these data, which span 3 decades in radius, is consistent with numerical DM-only simulations at radii >~ 5-10 kpc, despite the significant contribution of stellar material in the core. Here we decompose the inner mass profiles of these clusters into stellar and dark components. Parametrizing the DM density profile as a power law rho_DM ~ r^{-\beta} on small scales, we find a mean slope = 0.50 +- 0.10 (random) +0.14-0.13 (systematic). Alternatively, cored Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) profiles with = 1.14 +- 0.13 (random) +0.14-0.22 (systematic) provide an equally good description. These density profiles are significantly shallower than canonical NFW models at radii <~ 30 kpc, comparable to the effective radii of the BCGs. The inner DM profile is correlated with the distribution of stars in the BCG, suggesting a connection between the inner halo and the assembly of stars in the central galaxy. The stellar mass-to-light ratio inferred from lensing and stellar dynamics is consistent with that inferred using stellar population synthesis models if a Salpeter initial mass function is adopted. We compare these results to theories describing the interaction between baryons and DM in cluster cores, including adiabatic contraction models and the possible effects of galaxy mergers and active galactic nucleus feedback, and evaluate possible signatures of alternative DM candidates.Comment: Updated to matched the published version in Ap

Followup procedure in time-domain F-statistic searches for continuous gravitational waves

Potentially interesting gravitational-wave candidates (outliers) from the blind all-sky searches have to be confirmed or rejected by studying their origin and precisely estimating their parameters. We present the design and first results for the followup procedure of the {\tt Polgraw} all-sky search pipeline: a coherent search for almost-monochromatic gravitational-wave signals in several-day long time segments using the $F$-statistic method followed by the coincidences between the candidate signals. Approximate parameters resulting in these two initial steps are improved in the final followup step, in which the signals from detectors are studied separately, together with the network combination of them, and the true parameters and signal-to-noise values are established.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, published in Proceedings of the Polish Astronomical Society, vol. 7, 37-40 (2018

Listening to the Voices of Adolescents who had Mental Health Problems in the K-12 Years

Learning session co-conducted at the annual conference of the Minnesota School Counselor Association, Brainerd, MN. 2011, May