Program Benefits
When comprehensive school counseling programs are fully implemented in local school districts using the MCSCP as a guide, the following benefits can be expected for students, parents/guardians, teachers, communities, boards of education, administrators, and school counselors:
Benefits for Students
● Focuses on all students equitably
● Enhances students’ academic performance
● Centers on students’ needs
● Seeks students’ input
● Encourages more interaction among students
● Provides a developmental and preventative focus
● Promotes knowledge and assistance in career exploration and development
● Enhances life coping skills
● Helps students feel connected to school
● Enhances students’ social/emotional development
● Develops decision‐making skills
● Increases knowledge of self and others
● Broadens knowledge of our changing work world
● Increases opportunities for school counselor‐student interaction
● Develops a system of long‐range planning for students
Benefits for Parents/Guardians
● Enhances students’ academic performance, and their social/emotional and career development
● Encourages outreach to all parents/guardians
● Provides support for parents/guardians regarding each child’s educational development
● Increases opportunities for school counselor interaction
● Encourages input of parents/guardians
● Provides parents/guardians information about available resources
● Assures parents/guardians that all children will receive equitable support from the school counseling program
Benefits for Teachers
● Contributes to a team effort to enhance students’ social/emotional, academic, and career development
● Provides relevant curriculum ideas using school counseling grade level expectations
● Establishes the school counselor as a resource/consultant
● Encourages teachers’ input into the delivery of the comprehensive school counseling program
● Encourages positive, collaborative working relationships
● Defines the role of school counselors as educators
Benefits for the Board of Education
● Enhances students’ social/emotional, academic, and career development
● Encourages greater school‐community interaction
● Meets the school counseling standards found in the Missouri School Improvement Program
● Provides a rationale for including a comprehensive school counseling program in a school system
● Provides program information to district patrons
● Provides a basis for determining funding allocations for the program
● Provides ongoing evaluation data concerning the full implementation of the program, the work of school counselors within the program, and the attainment of relevant school counseling student outcomes
Benefits for Administrators
● Enhances students’ social/emotional, academic, and career development
● Provides a clearly defined organizational structure for the comprehensive school counseling program
● Establishes a clearly defined job description for school counselors
● Provides a way to supervise and evaluate school counselors
● Encourages administrative input and involvement in the implementation and evaluation of the comprehensive school counseling program
● Provides the way to meet Missouri School Improvement Program standards for school counseling
● Provides a means of accountability through comprehensive school counseling program, personnel, and results evaluations
● Enhances the image of the comprehensive school counseling program in the school and community
● Promotes the work of school counselors as providers of direct services to students and parents, as well as being a consultant and collaborator with teachers and administrators
Benefits for the Community
• Encourages input from business, industry, labor, and other community partners including community mental health and social service agencies
• Increases opportunities for collaboration among school counselors and business, industry, labor, and other community partners including community mental health and social service agencies
• Enhances the role of the school counselor as a resource person
• Facilitates the development of students as active responsible citizens
• Increases opportunities for business, industry, labor, and other community partners including community mental health and social service agencies to actively participate in the total school program
• Enhances students’ academic performance as well as their social/emotional and career development
• Supplies a future workforce that has decision‐making skills, pre‐employment skills, and increased worker maturity
Benefits for School Counselors
• Enhances students’ academic performance as well as their social/emotional and career development
• Places school counseling in the mainstream of the total educational system
• Provides clearly defined organizational structure
• Reduces and strives to eliminate non‐ school counseling tasks
• Offers the opportunity to reach all students equitably
• Provides a systematic way to plan, design, implement, evaluate, and enhance the district’s comprehensive school counseling program
• Outlines clearly defined responsibilities for helping students master school counseling content, develop Individual Career and Academic Plans, and assisting students with their individual concerns
• Provides the way to meet school counseling program standards found in the Missouri School Improvement Program