Download or read book Secondary School Counseling. Research Brief written by Karen Walker and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 4 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Secondary school counselors are professional educators with a mental health perspective who understand and respond to the challenges presented by today's diverse student population" ("Why secondary school counselors?"). As times have changed, so has the role of the school counselor. In the early part of the 20th century when the country was rapidly growing and the Industrial Age was king, there were high poverty and crime rates. This created a strong need for marketable job skills, so the position of school vocational counselor was created. As what can happen when needs change, job descriptions are often added to, but often not reexamined, to determine if it still meets the needs and demands of the job. The literature was clear that this has been the case in regards to the role of the school counselor. As a result, the counselor is often expected to meet the vocational, academic, social, and emotional needs of their clients while having an unrealistically high number of students to serve. The literature also stated that counselors are often used for jobs other than that of a counselor such as to do supervision and discipline. When developing a sensible job description for the school counselor, feedback from all of the stakeholders (ie. students, teachers, parents, administration, and community) and the counselors is critical to the success of that role. In structuring the information form for the stakeholders, following the National Standards for School Counselors could be used as an outstanding guide. Once the comments and needs have been compiled, they should be prioritized with descriptions of what each would look like, who would implement it, then realistic timeframes should be established. (Contains 16 online resources.).