· Professional Title
Some professional in the field prefer to be called guidance counselor or prefer the term as a school counselor. The expected duties are more extensive than those practiced by vocational guidance counselors of the past, and the feeling of many school counselors that the name of the profession should reflect its expanded roles.
· Evaluation
The demand for accountability and evaluation has led to the development of numerous criteria to help school counselors evaluate their specific intervention techniques.
· Prevention vs. Remediation
A growing trend in the field of counseling is the focus on prevention instead of remediation. A shift for school counselors to intercede prior to any incidents and to become more proactive in developing and enacting school-wide prevention plans in the students from being involved with many difficulties, such as participating in gangs, dropping out of school, becoming a teenage parent, using drugs, and participating in or becoming victims of acts of violence.
MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING. Eric Digest
Holfstede (1984) identified four dimensions of cultures which includes the following:
1. Power Distance - the extent to which a culture accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.
2. Uncertainty Avoidance - the extent to which members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain or ambiguous situations.
3. Individualism - a social framework in which people are supposed to take care of themselves and of their immediate families only. Collectivism refers to a social framework in which people distinguish between in - groups and out - groups, expecting their in- group to look after them, and in exchange for that owe loyalty to it.
4. Masculinity/ Femininity - the extent to which the dominant values within a culture are assertiveness, money and things, caring for others, quality of life, and people.
For the counselor to be effective, he/ she must be able to:
1.Express respect for the client in a manner that is felt, understood, accepted, and appreciated by the client.
2.Feel and express empathy for culturally different clients.
3.Personalize his/ her observations.
4.Withhold judgment and remain objective until one has enough information and an understanding of the world of the client.
5.Tolerate ambiguity.
6.Have patience and perseverance when unable to get things done immediately.
The Multicultural Awareness Continuum ( Locke, 1986) was designed to illustrate the areas of awareness through which a counselor must go in the process of counseling a culturally different client. The continuum is linear and the process is developmental, best understood as a lifelong process and includes the following:
· Self Awareness
· Awareness of one’s own culture.
· Awareness of racism, sexism, and poverty.
· Awareness of individual differences.
· Awareness of other cultures.
· Awareness of diversity.
· Skills and Techniques.
ETHICS AND REGULATIONS OF CYBER- COUNSELING. Eric Digest
Cyber counseling or web counseling was called by the National Board of Certified Counselors , is defined as the practice of professional counseling and information delivery that occurs when client(s) and counselor(s) are in separate or remote locations and utilize electronic means to communicate over the internet. And there are critical issues about cyber counseling and it includes the following:
1. Truth in advertising.
2.Confidentiality and privileged communication.
3.Duty to warn.
4.Competence
5. Dual relationships
6.How does a counselee know that the assigned homework is valid for the type of problem presented?
7.Some cyber counselors may do inadequate pre-screening of potential counselees.8.Lack of cyber counselor knowledge of the circumstances or culture of the client.
9.The anonymity of the counselee may be problematic for the cyber counselor.
10. Fee structures vary.
11. Is the counselee actually receiving advice from the person who is on the web page?
STATE REGULATIONS AND CYBERCOUNSELING
· Federation of State Medical Boards ( FSMB) produced model legislation regarding telemedicine.
· International Society for Mental Health Online (1997) promote understanding, use and development of online communication, information and technology for the international mental health community.
· American Tele medical Association proposes that the state should not restrict “virtual travel” of its patients to seek medical advice outside of the state
