Michigan Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Program

  • ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors

    Benefits of the MCGCP

    The four components of this program are:

    1.  Guidance Curriculum - Structured experiences are presented in small group sessions, classroom presentations, and/or team teaching situations. Topics could include:  study skills, decision making skills, career awareness, career exploration, planning course selections for high school, job preparation, personal responsibility skills, peer pressure resistance skills, and personal safety issues.

    2.  Individual Planning - This area consists of activities that help all students plan, monitor, and manage their own learning as well as their personal and career development. These activities are generally delivered on an individual basis, or by working with individuals in small groups. Topics may include: career awareness, interest inventories, four-year planning, yearly course selection, career exploration.

    3.  Responsive Services - These services deal with activities that meet the immediate needs and concerns of all students and are most often student initiated. These services include:

    Consultations with parents, teachers, administrators, etc., to help determine strategies to help individual students.

    Use of an individual or small group setting to help students expressing difficulties dealing with relationships, personal concerns or normal developmental tasks.  Small groups may respond to students’ needs such as self-esteem, adjusting to transitions, new student orientation, managing personal stress, coping with loss, concern about alcohol or drug use by a family member or friend, maintaining an alcohol/drug-free lifestyle, etc.

    Crisis counseling and support are provided to students and their families facing emergency situations - this counseling should be short-term and temporary in nature as appropriate referral sources should be used.

    Referral to sources to deal with issues that would be handled by school students support services, community mental health agencies or therapists, social services, juvenile services, etc.

    4.  Systems Support - Activities in this category include professional development, staff and community relations, advisory committees, community outreach, program management and operations, and research development.

     

    Role of the School Counselor