sample guidance program

High School Guidance
Program

Guidance Curriculum
Individual Planning
Responsive Services
System Support

High School Guidance Counselors deliver the comprehensive guidance program to students in grades nine through twelve in a manner that prepares students for post secondary opportunities.
High School Counselors must have the following qualifications, (All high school counselors in Northside I.S.D)
• are professional educators,
• have earned a Master's Degree,
• are specifically trained in counseling techniques,
• Are certified as school counselors by the Texas Education Agency.
High School Counselors address their continuing professional growth through:
• Inservice training
• Workshops
• Local, state and national conferences
• Continuing Education
• Inter-school counselor meetings
• Current professional literature and media information
• Presentations to professional groups
• Technology networking
Students may see the school counselor through...
• A student self referral
• A teacher referral
• A parent referral
• A counselor request
• An administrator request
Students may want to see the counselor for many reasons, including assistance with:
• Problem-solving by exploring alternatives to make appropriate decisions.
• Developing positive attitudes towards self and others.
• Establishing personal goals.
• Developing educational plans and in selecting the related courses based on individual interests and talents.
• Interpretation of results of standardized tests.
High School Counselors across the district provide similar services tailored to the educational level and to the student and campus needs. To find out more about the guidance program at each high school campus, click on the link below to go to the NISD High School Websites.

Guidance Curriculum
High School Counselors teach the guidance curriculum and assist teachers with guidance-related curricula. The following are examples of the topics that are addressed in class guidance sessions.
• Academic support
• Career pathways
• Character development
• Decision-making
• Developmental assets
• Goal-Setting
• Graduation requirements
• Study skills
• Understanding academic records
• Conflict management
Individual Planning
High School Counselors provide individual or group assistance with educational planning and career exploration. Sample activities include the following:
• 9-12 Pre-registration activities such as course selection and review of graduation requirements.
• Special events such as college and career days, financial aid programs and elective fairs.
• Assistance to students with information for special programs such as dual credit, transition/IEP needs.
• Student/parent conferences to address educational and career planning.
• Freshman Conferences to orient students to high school.
• Sophomore conferences to review student Graduation Status Report (GSR), to interpret the standardized test scores and to provide career guidance.
• Junior Conferences to review the GSR, to provide college, career and relevant testing information.
• Senior Conferences to review the GSR, provide post-secondary education admissions information, as well as scholarship and financial aid information.
Responsive Services
High School Counselors provide students with counseling services, either individually or in groups, to address relevant adolescent issues as a result of student, teacher, parent and/or administrator concerns, or for crisis response. Examples of concerns students may bring to the counselor's office include the following:
• Conflict mediation
• Dropout prevention
• Financial assistance
• Peer relations
• Progress toward graduation
• Schedule issues or changes
• Social issues
• Teen parenting
• Violence and drug abuse issues
Counselors also provide consultation services to parents and teachers.
Additionally, counselors may refer students (and when needed, their families) to other programs for other resources or services such as:
• Safe and Drug Free Program,
• Gifted and Talented Program,
• Special Education Services,
• HORIZONS Program, (perhaps link to their website)
• Other district and community resources and services.
System Support
High School Counselors coordinate with school and community to bring together resources for students. Counselors provide information about:
• AP Testing Schedule
• Exit Level TAAS testing schedule
• Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and American College Testing (ACT) testing schedule and preparatory classes
• PSAT Test Schedule
Counselors organize or assist with many activities on behalf of students with other campus, district and community groups. Examples include:
• Ninth Grade Orientation (see campus website for information)
• Parent Programs, such as Financial Aid Night and Junior Parent Programs
• High School Guidance Program Open House
• Partnerships with community businesses
• Mentoring Programs
• Career-Tech Expo
• College Night
• Communication networks with college and military representatives
• School Advisory Team
• Safe and Drug Free School and Communities Program Advisory Council
• National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) Student Training Program
• Junior Achievement
• NISD programs and resources, Compensatory, Special Education, optional high school and testing programs, etc.
Counselors provide consultation and training services to school staff and parents. Topics they address can include the following:
• Developmental Assets
• Multicultural/Diversity training
• Guidance program information
• New teacher training
• Signs and symptoms of substance abuse and violence
MICHIGAN COMPREHENSIVE
GUIDANCE & COUNSELING PROGRAM

The educational system of this country is under almost continuous attack from outside societal forces. Educators are asked to do more and more with ever diminishing resources. The educational system is held responsible for responding to a variety of social problems in addition to teaching those basic educational skills necessary for the United States to compete effectively in a global economy. Every day classroom teachers, school administrators and school counselors must deal with the consequences of dysfunctional families, drugs, gangs, violence, latch-key children, teenage suicide, teenage pregnancy, and other social conditions which threaten the growth and development of young people in this country. All components of our educational system must search out new and innovative methods and procedures for responding to the challenges posed by current social conditions. School counselors, who are equal partners in the educational system, have developed interventions to make positive, practical contributions toward helping our educational system meet these challenges as effectively as possible. School counselors believe that teaching life skills is inherent in the curriculum of counseling and is critical to preparing students for life. It is with this rationale, that a comprehensive and developmental school counseling program is advocated for every school.
A grass roots effort aimed at meeting these educational challenges began in the Fall of 1990 when a committee was formed to work on a comprehensive guidance and counseling program for Michigan schools. The membership of the Michigan Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Program Committee was comprised of practitioners from the Michigan School Counselor Association (MSCA), all practicing school counselors, counselor educators, and guidance administrators. This committee was charged with developing a comprehensive guidance and counseling program that met four basic conditions:
1. It is specific enough to provide clear guidelines for school counselors to follow in developing comprehensive, developmental/preventative guidance and counseling programs for their schools.
2. It is general enough to allow school counselors to develop standards and benchmarks which reflect the unique needs and characteristics of the student populations being served.
3. It provides a structure for school counselors to use in explaining the purposes of the guidance and counseling program and the functions of counselors to students, parents, teachers, administrators, and community members.
4. It provides a framework which would enable school counseling programs to demonstrate accountability.
The Program
The program that has been developed reflects a change from the traditional/remedial emphasis of counseling to a more contemporary developmental/preventive emphasis. Historically, school counselors were seen as providing a set of ancillary services which were considered useful but not essential to be education enterprise. Today's social realities dictate that the old ways of conceptualizing school counseling are no longer valid. Prevention-oriented programs, which stress collaboration with other educational professionals and which are seen as integral parts of the educational process, are mandatory if the next generation of young people are to be allowed to realize their potential with respect to academic, personal/social, and career development. Prevention assumes a place of central importance in contemporary school counseling programs because many of the problems facing young people today are both too dangerous and too difficult to deal with when allowed to grow unchecked during the formative years.
Program Defined
A comprehensive guidance and counseling program is a systematically designed set of components, which includes a counseling curriculum, responsive services, individual planning, and systems support that empowers professional school counselors to assist students in meeting their academic, personal/social, and career needs from kindergarten through grade 12. It is developmental in design in that it offers sequentially planned activities which meet the needs of children and adolescents as they grow and progress from one grade level to the next.
It addresses the needs of all students by helping them to acquire and apply knowledge of self and others, develop competencies in career/life planning, and achieve educational success.
Philosophy
The philosophy of a comprehensive guidance and counseling program is based on two assumptions: (1) that each individual student is unique and (2) that individuals normally grow an develop in ways similar to those of other individuals their same age. Thus, a comprehensive guidance and counseling program contains components that address the individual and group needs of children and adolescents. The professional school counselor has the major responsibility for the design and implementation of the program. However, administrators, teachers, psychologists, social workers, nurses, parents, and community resource persons also have a significant responsibility. As stated in the Wisconsin Developmental Guidance Model (1986), "A systematic approach to guidance can help make certain that the skills of the counselor are used to optimum advantage; that the invaluable work of social workers, nurses, and psychologists interfaces with the guidance program; that the classroom teacher's important guidance role is strengthened; and that parents and other community resource people are kept informed and urged to participate more actively in the education of children" (p.v).
THE IOWA COMPREHENSIVE COUNSELING AND
GUIDANCE PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT GUIDE

PROGRAM COMPONENTS
A comprehensive program is based on learning in three areas of development: personal/social, academic, and career. Program components serve as the structure to achieve the learning goals. Gysbers and Henderson
(1997, 2000) identified the following components: guidance curriculum, individual planning, responsive services, and system support. Even though Gysbers and Henderson focused on pre-kindergarten through
12, their work is also applicable to community college counseling and guidance programming

GUIDANCE CURRICULUM
This component is the heart and soul of the developmental piece of a comprehensive program. Included in this component will be standards and benchmarks by grade level so that there is a scope and sequence.
Once these standards and benchmarks are identified, activities to achieve them are developed. These activities are generally implemented in 30-45 minute weekly or bi-weekly classroom guidance sessions which are for all students. Since the counselor cannot do all the classroom guidance, plus all the other counseling responsibilities, teaming with teachers is critical. The curriculum can be developed by the counselor or as a joint teacher-counselor effort. Counselors can train teachers in effective facilitation skills. If activities have well-defined objectives and learning outcomes, specific procedures, and discussion questions, there is very little difference between teaching a language arts lesson and teaching a guidance lesson: both emphasize awareness, knowledge, and skill. At the middle school and high school levels, an advisor-advisee system is often an effective way to implement a systematic program. With this integrated system, one teacher would meet weekly or bi-weekly with a group of 10 to 15 students and conduct a lesson, followed by discussion.

Lessons such as these may also be implemented in small structured groups of six to ten students. These sessions basically serve the same purpose as classroom guidance; the advantage being that with fewer students there is more opportunity for discussion and personalization. It is important to note that these types of groups are for all students and are preventive and more educational in nature, in contrast to groups that are formed in response to a problem that is already beginning to emerge.
This component should also include parent/family education programs at all levels. These programs can be delivered in two ways: through large group informational sessions, where a topic that is particularly relevant to a group of parents or families is presented; or through small group sessions of six to ten people. Small groups may be ongoing for six to eight weeks; one topic or a series of topics can be explored. The topics can be general topics such as discipline or developmentally relevant topics such as how to handle adolescent mood swings or how to deal with the transition out of high school. Small groups may also be structured as support groups, where a group of parents or families with a common need meet for support and sharing. An example of this type of group would be groups for parents of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or a group for families dealing with substance abuse or divorce, for example.

This component also includes conducting inservice with teachers, administrators, and school support staff. Characteristic traits at developmental stages, effective conflict resolution or classroom management strategies, and communication techniques are typical areas of counselor expertise that are pertinent to others and can be shared in informal discussion groups or structured presentations. By getting involved at this level, the counselor is perceived as a leader who contributes to the overall school climate, and as a result, guidance programs are viewed as an integral component of the educational environment.

This component is different from the other three in several ways:
1. There are specifically planned activities in this component that are curriculum based lessons.
2. Teachers will do more of these tasks than those in other components because while they can be trained to do classroom guidance, it takes extensive training found in masters degree programs to do individual and small group counseling, for example, teachers are not permitted or qualified to do individual counseling.
3. This component, more than any of the others, focuses on prevention. The intent is to systematically present students with information and skills that they can use to address typical developmental problems; the hope is that as they learn what is “normal” and learn ways to deal with these issues that they will develop the ability to deal with similar problems in the future.
4. Standards and benchmarks in this component are generally based on what research tells us about developmental tasks all children and adolescents need to master. Therefore, they are based on what all students need. In contrast, a needs assessment would be done to identify deficits and specific areas that some children may need more help with, or areas that would be specific to a certain community, or in response to a crisis, for example.
These needs would be addressed in classroom guidance lessons or in small group counseling sessions specifically designed to focus on these issues, or through school prevention programs targeting problems such as substance abuse, teen pregnancy, or drop-out rates.
5. Activities in this component are done on a systematic basis and are for all students, whereas this might not always be the case in other components. The curriculum addresses developmentally appropriate concepts for each grade level in the three domains:
1. Personal/Social Development
• Self-concept, self-awareness, self-acceptance
• Emotions/emotional maturity
• Interpersonal relationship skills
• Problem solving/decision-making skills
• Behavior management
• Personal safety
2. Academic Development
• Attitudes that contribute to lifelong learning
• Skills for improving learning such as time management and persistence
• Study skills for school success
• Academic goal setting
3. Career Development
• Career exploration
• Career planning and goal setting (see Appendix)
• Career preparation

INDIVIDUAL PLANNING
The activities in this component are also providing for all students and serve to guide them in developing and attaining their personal/social, academic, and career plans. Major activities in this component include orientation programs for students transferring to the school, for students entering preschool or kindergarten, and for students transitioning from elementary to middle school and from middle school to high school. These orientation sessions should not only address the informational aspects of the transition such as the layout of the building, but also emotional issues such as anxiety about the transition.
Another key activity at the junior and senior high levels is educational planning, which could include working with students on scheduling and course planning; helping with post-secondary planning, placement, and financial aid; and career information.
Testing, interpretation, and dissemination of standardized test results may also be included in thi component. Counselors need to be careful that this component does not consume a disproportionate amount of their time. Many of these activities can be done in small or large group sessions. Other school personnel or clerical staff can also assist with scheduling and test dissemination and interpretation.
Oftentimes academic advising can be done through an advisor-advisee program where the counselor serves as a consultant and coordinator, but the advisor actually works directly with the student.
These delivery methods directly address the team concept inherent in the comprehensive guidance philosophy and free the counselor to carry out other important functions of the developmental program (for an example of individual planning forms, see Appendix).

RESPONSIVE SERVICES
The purpose of this component is to assist students who have problems that interfere with their healthy personal, social, educational, or career development.
Counselors will work with students individually or in small groups to provide them with skills to help them prevent a problem from becoming major, or they may work with them to identify remedial interventions to address more serious concerns or problems that have resulted in unhealthy choices. For example, a student who is suddenly finding herself experiencing more conflicts with her parents might learn some effective communication skills to help her deal with the problem before it becomes major. In this case, the counselor is able to help her prevent the problem from becoming worse. If the student had already been kicked out of the house or beaten up in a fight with her parents, more significant remedial action would be called for. Problems students present in the responsive services component include normal developmental problems that they are not coping with successfully as well as more serious problems such as depression, eating disorders, test anxiety, or grief and loss issues. Problems may b in the areas of personal development, issues with selfesteem, pregnancy/sexuality, and substance abuse for example.
Students may also experience problems in social development such as parental divorce, violence, peer problems, or sibling problems. They may also have problems in educational development such a school phobia, test anxiety, or with achievement and motivation. In the career development area, they may be dealing with analyzing interests and aptitudes or deciding on post-secondary options for example.
Counselors intervene not only individually or with small groups of students who have a similar need (i.e., divorce support groups, groups for children of alcoholics), but they also may consult with teachers a work with parents and families to help them address students’ needs. In addition, they may refer students to other agencies for more specialized support (i.e. eating disorder programs, mental health centers wh counselors specialize in treating suicidal or addicted adolescents).
Also included in this component is the counselor’ role in the school crisis intervention plan. Every school needs to have a plan in place in case a tragic event occurs (death of a student or teacher, community disaster, etc.). Teams of school personnel and outside resource personnel need to be trained in advance about how to follow the crisis plan. The counselor can serve a key leadership role in helping develop the plan and training personnel.
Work in this component, unlike in the curriculum component, does not consist of planned activities of anticipated topics. The counselor responds to what students present, and those problems rang from difficulty coping with normal developmental issues to more serious situational crises.

SYSTEM SUPPORT
This component encompasses support services that the counseling/guidance program provides to other educational programs such as testing, vocational education, special education, and gifted education. It also includes support that the guidance program needs from the system in terms of management activities.
Examples of management activities might include having adequate facilities and a budget, structures that support the program such as advisory committees, time allocation for various counseling- related duties and responsibilities, public relations efforts to promote the program, and program articulation and management. The support services that the guidance program provides to the school often involve the counselor(s) as coordinator, linking services both in the school and community to help address needs of special needs and gifted students.
This component does not involve as much direct work with students; rather, the focus is on articulation, management, and coordination of the program to assure that it is an integral part of the school structure. The counselor is a key member of school improvement, discipline policy, and behavior management teams.

COMPREHENSIVE COUNSELING/GUIDANCE PROGRAM
OVERVIEW

FRAMEWORK
PROGRAM
DELIVERY
COMPONENTS DOMAINS RESOURCES

Conceptual Framework
• Mission Statement
• Rationale
• Benefits
• Assumptions
Structural Framework
• Steering Committee
• Advisory Committee
• Staffing Patterns
• Budget
• Guidance Resources
• Facilities
Guidance Curriculum
• Classroom
• Presentations
• Structured Groups
Individual Planning
• Educational
Planning
• Advisement
• Assessment
Responsive Services
• Individual Counseling
• Small Group
Counseling
• Consultation
• Referral
• Collaboration
System Support
• Management
• Public Relations
• Professional
Development
• Evaluation
Areas
• Personal/Social
Development
• Academic
Development
• Career
Development

Human
• School
• Community
• Business and
Labor
Political
• School Boards
• Legislature
• Policy
Financial
• State Funding
• Grants
Technological
• Equipment
• Management
Information
Systems

SUGGESTED TIME DISTRIBUTION
Percentages
Elementary
School
Middle/Junior
High School
High
School
Post-
Secondary
Guidance Curriculum 40 35 25 15
Individual Planning 10 25 35 35
Responsive Service 35 25 25 35
System Support 15 15 15 15
Totals 100 100 100 100
Adapted from the Utah and Texas Models for Comprehensive Guidance

story

STEP 1:
The Great Father
Step 2:
Mr. Reyes is a fisherman. He is the one taking good care of his five children because his wife passed away three years ago. Every morning Mr. Reyes and his eldest son go on the sea to catch fish. After being hauled from the sea the fish are put on ice. Then, they sell this fish to the market in a low cost. Mr. Reyes doesn’t mind the tiredness only his goal is to have an income to support the everyday needs of his family. His eldest son is 15 yrs. Old while the youngest is only 6 yrs. Old. His income is not enough to sustain the needs of his family so that if he has time, he works in the farm. Even though sometimes they experienced scarcity they lived happily and they have time for bonding and spend time to each other.
STEP 3:
NEGATIVE POINT:
The salary of Mr. Reyes is not enough for them to sustain the needs of his family.
POSITIVE POINT:
Even if the father is tired of working, he fined another job to have an extra income. And he has time to be with his family.
STEP 4:
I relate myself to the story because I grew up in a province and also the occupation there is fisherman. My father also is the one who support our needs.
STEP 5:
The moral of the story is give value to your father and appreciate the things they do for us. And don’t waste the money for nothing because it’s hard to earn money.