Professional School Counselor Personal Experience Essay Example

Professional School Counselor: Personal Experience Essay As Maria’s professional school counselor, how would you assist her with issues that have personal, emotional, developmental, cultural, and spiritual/religious ramifications? ? Specifically identify strategies, programs, and practices that advocate for social justice and academic success for Maria. ? Â  Identify how you would use collaboration and consultation to work with students, teachers, parents, and community agencies to reduce the recent increase in teenage pregnancy at your school. Briefly, compare and contrast the three models of consultation presented in the Erford text , and identify the model that you would apply it to address the issue of teenage pregnancy in your school and why? ? What are the ethical and legal considerations in this case? As Maria’s professional school counselor, I would assist her with her issues with various ramifications by having one-on-one counseling sessions to learn more about her, her culture, her worldview, and her current decisi on making process.I understand that she may be having a hard time dealing with the obstacles life has put in her path by being pregnant, losing her parents, being new to the U. S. and school, and not knowing what decisions she will make. After getting to know Maria better, I would counsel based on the information I gathered from her, along with the help of various resources to help her deal with the issues we addressed. A strategy that could advocate for social justice and academic success for Maria would be using a scientific approach as proposed by Sue (1998).I would start by forming a hypothesis about Maria. I would then do dynamic sizing, which in this situation I definitely would want to exclusively work with Maria. This is important because it helps me to not stereotype Maria and embrace her culture at the same time. Lastly, I would do research on Maria’s culture and consult with a colleague who may have the same culture, or is bilingual to help make the process smoothe r. I would look into getting her into and ESL class as soon as possible to ensure I am advocating for the successful completion of high school against the odds that Maria face.The recent increase in teenage pregnancy is definitely an issue I would like to address. Through collaboration and consultation with parents, teachers, and the community, I would propose having assemblies twice a year on teenage pregnancy and premarital sex and the risks the student is taking. I would get with the health department and see if I could get a nurse to lead the program and become the guest speaker as well provide alternate means of protection when it comes to sex.I am aware that I would not be able to change the decision of whether or not the students have sex, but I would be sure that they are well educated on the consequences and repercussions of the act. The assembly would be scheduled where the female and male students attended separately so there would not be any discomfort. The assembly woul d be mandatory. The three models of consultation in the Erford text is triadic-dependent model, the collaborative-dependent model, and the collaborative-interdependent model.The triadic-dependent model is based on a consultee, a helpgiver, and the focus of concern, which is the client. In this model, the consultant provides services indirectly to the client through the consultant’s work with the consultee. The counselor works in direct contact with the student (223). The collaborative-dependent model is the consultant engages the knowledge and expertise of the consultee regarding the student’s and the system’s strengths and weaknesses, the contextual factors that influence the student, and the student’s reactions to previous interventions (p. 27). The collaborative-interdependent model emphasizes an interdependent problem-solving process in which family members, educators, counselors, youth, and members of the broader community contribute as equal partici pants (p. 228). Triadic-dependent and collaborative-dependent consultation models are helpful when seeking change for an individual client or family or for a single organizational system related to normal development problems. The collaborative-interdependent is used for problems that are more complex.I would use the collaborative-interdependent model when it comes to addressing the teenage pregnancy in my school because this gives the students a wealth of professional and community members that they are able to seek help from that goes beyond the schoolhouse and home. Ethic and legal considerations for this case with Maria would definitely be confidentiality. I would have to find who her legal guardian is because I would try to get her to let them know she is pregnant if she had not already.I would also need to make sure she is getting the correct medical attention and vitamins that she needs while she is pregnant. I would not push the issue of citizenship, but if she addresses it, we would look into the situation to ensure that there are no issues when it comes to delivering her child. Reference Erford, B. (2011). Transforming the school counseling profession. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.