Comprehensive Guidance Program

A comprehensive guidance program is an integral component of the school's overall academic mission. This program is organized and implemented by the school counselor through collaboration with parents, students, staff, and community members. The guidance program focuses on student development in the areas of academic achievement, career, and emotional/social development. There are four components that provide the framework for a comprehensive guidance program: Foundation, Management, Delivery, and Accountability.

School counselor's spend their time implementing a guidance program which allows them to spend 80 percent or more of their time in direct and indirect services to students. A comprehensive guidance program focuses on activities and services in these four areas: Responsive services, Guidance and Curriculum, Individual Planning, and System Support.

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Guidance Curriculum

The school counseling guidance curriculum is an essential part of the school counseling program that ensures that the developmental needs of each student are being met. The curriculum helps students to develop skills and increase their understanding of academic success. The curriculum allows classroom teachers and counselors an opportunity to collaborate with one another which in turn can provide opportunities for early detection of potential issues and identification of appropriate interventions. Guidance curriculum offers the counselor greater visibility, increased contact with more students, and enhanced collaborations with teachers (Battista, 2015). Guidance curriculum can be presented as presentations, large or small group activities, community events, parent workshops, and classroom instruction.

Responsive Services

Responsive services are intended to address the immediate academic, social, career, and personal issues of students through counseling and crisis response. Responsive services are available to all students and rely heavily on collaboration between stakeholders. Responsive services may involve direct services such as individual and small group counseling activities, individual student planning, and/or consultation. Responsive services can also be indirect through the use of accountability domains, foundation, and management. Responsive services are planned, written, and goal-oriented. There are also mandated time allocations between implementation of services. It is recommended by the ASCA (2015) that 35% to 45% of the counselor’s overall time is spent doing guidance curriculum activities, 30%to 40% of overall time is spent implementing responsive services, 5% to 10% of overall time is spent implementing individual planning services, 10% to 15% is spent in system support, and 0% of overall time should be spent in non-guidance activities.

Individual Planning

Individual planning is a direct service that provides the counselor with a chance to meet with students and their parents or caregivers about transitions to the next level of education and/or a transition in to a career. This is called individual or small group advisement. When a counselor is able to help students plan long and short-term goals in life by evaluating their abilities, interests, achievement, and skill that is known as individual or small group appraisal. A parent/ student meeting is held when a counselor meets with the student and parent in order to talk about the student’s progress towards obtaining the goals that they set for themselves and revising goals as necessary. Next step planning is an individual planning service that allows the counselor to meet with the student to discuss their transition from one school or grade to another as well as one educational program to another. This planning service works with the student to help him or her overcome barriers and establish a balance in their lives that will allow them to maximize their overall achievement.

Program Support

Program support integrates the Comprehensive Developmental Guidance Program in to the school and works to enhance the overall learning experience for every student. The counselor is a big part of program support and is required to provide advocacy for the students while overseeing the program content and initiating improvements as necessary. Program support consists of communication, data driven program reviews, coordination of programs, and providing instructional support to all staff members. Consultation, evaluation, collaboration, participation, and feedback are all components that are necessary in order to provide data on emerging student needs, developing advisory councils, and implementing community outreach programs.