Guidance counselors have to balance multiple roles when relating to students. They are a primary advocate for students, in both the students personal and academic lives.

Preparing students for the future:

It’s important for counselors to be able to make regular assessments of each student’s academic progress, so that they can be familiar with individual needs and goals. Advising a student on which classes to take and how to prepare for their academic and career futures is a cornerstone of a guidance counselor’s function. Giving out assessment tests, consulting with students regarding career goals and reminding them about scholarship and application deadlines are all regular duties for high school guidance counselors in particular.

Helping students with the present:

One of the hardest and most rewarding aspects of being a guidance counselor is helping students today. Whether it’s giving them the confidence they need to sign up for a particular class, or helping them through a troubled period in their lives, guidance counselors are important. Children coping with family issues, such as divorce, or social issues, such as peer pressure or bullying, often turn to their guidance counselor for advice. Even more importantly, a guidance counselor should be attuned enough to their students that they notice shifts in behavior or attitude even before the student brings it up!

But for somebody who is interested in helping others, who can really listen and wants to help guide children and young adults – for that person, a career as a guidance counselor can be a wonderful and rewarding occupation.

The GCU study, conducted via forums and electronic surveys of area public high school guidance counselors, showed some surprising results. A record number of students are seeking help to decide what to do after high school.

While colleges and universities are investing heavily to recruit students, the demands on high school students are escalating as well. Students are pressured to decide on an area of study before even entering college. A majority of counselors said that less than half of their students had decided on a major or direction of study for college.

Couple that pressure with the stress to select a college or university. As a result, students are increasingly seeking out guidance counselors to help with the critical decision-making process. Students are coming to counselors for assistance with college applications, financial aid and scholarship information.

Many of the counselors also reported that they need better training to assist students with the application process.

Sidebar:
Among the guidance counselors surveyed by Grand Canyon University, most responded that students had also sought assistance for something other than college planning. The most frequent reasons students asked for help were:

• Grief and bereavement – 76% of counselors
• Suicide issues – 68% of counselors
• Drug and alcohol issues – 65% of counselors

Counselors are readily available to advise students throughout the school year. Learn about a few of the areas that a high school guidance counselor can help.

• Counselors can help students with scheduling classes. They can help plan for challenging courses required for graduation, as well as the courses colleges look for on a potential student’s application.
• As your teen progresses through high school, counselors help by keeping a record of their grades and overall progress.
• Counselors can help students set goals and give support in achieving them.
• Counselors can help recommend colleges that match your student’s academic goals.
• Counselors give advice and information to parents to find the appropriate college.
• Counselors have many resources to draw from to help students in all areas of school life.

High school guidance counselors can help students in all aspects of life. Whether a student has a college admissions question, a personal issue to discuss or needs advice for the upcoming semester, take advantage of the help they can offer. Learn more about the roles of guidance counselors.

Cnn.com reports that, “nearly 1 in 5 students at two Ivy League schools say they have purposely injured themselves by cutting, burning or other methods, a disturbing phenomenon that psychologists say they are hearing about more often.”

Guidance counselors have been reporting increased numbers of cutting in colleges, high schools and middle schools across the nation.

The latest prevalence estimate comes from an analysis of responses from 2,875 randomly selected male and female undergraduates and graduate students at Cornell and Princeton who completed an Internet-based mental health survey.

Seventeen percent said they had purposely injured themselves; among those, 70 percent had done so multiple times. The estimate is comparable to previous reports on U.S. adolescents and young adults, but slightly higher than studies of high school students in Australia and the United Kingdom.

The study appears in this month’s issue of Pediatrics. Cornell psychologist Janis Whitlock, the study’s main author, also led the Web site research, published in April in Developmental Psychology.

In today’s data-happy era of accountability, testing and No Child Left Behind, here is the most astonishing statistic in the whole field of education: an increasing number of researchers are saying that nearly one out of three public high school students won’t graduate, not just in Shelbyville but around the nation.

For Latinos and African-Americans, the rate approaches an alarming 50 percent. Virtually no community, small or large, rural or urban, has escaped the problem.

There is a small but hardy band of researchers who insist the dropout rates don’t quite approach those levels. They point to their pet surveys that suggest a rate of only 15 percent to 20 percent.

The dispute is difficult to referee, particularly in the wake of decades of lax accounting by states and schools. But the majority of analysts and lawmakers have come to this consensus: the numbers have remained unchecked at approximately 30 percent through two decades of intense educational reform, and the magnitude of the problem has been consistently, and often willfully, ignored.

That’s starting to change.

During his most recent State of the Union address, President Bush promised more resources to help children stay in school, and Democrats promptly attacked him for lacking a specific plan.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has trained its moneyed eye on the problem, funding “The Silent Epidemic,” a study issued in March that has gained widespread attention both in Washington and in statehouses around the country.

The attention comes against a backdrop of rising peril for dropouts.

If their grandparents’ generation could find a blue-collar niche and prosper, the latest group is immediately relegated to the most punishing sector of the economy, where whatever low-wage jobs haven’t yet moved overseas are increasingly filled by even lower-wage immigrants.

Dropping out of high school today is to your societal health what smoking is to your physical health, an indicator of a host of poor outcomes to follow, from low lifetime earnings to high incarceration rates to a high likelihood that your children will drop out of high school and start the cycle anew.

Identifying the problem is just the first step.

The next moves are being made by towns like Shelbyville, where a loose coalition of community leaders and school administrators have, for the first time, placed dropout prevention at the top of the agenda. Now they are gamely trying to identify why kids are leaving and looking for ways to reverse the tide.

“Ten years ago,” says Shelbyville principal Tom Zobel, “if we had a problem student, the plan was, ‘OK, let’s figure out how to get rid of this kid.’ Now we have to get them help.”

“Colleges and universities throughout the country are grappling with the case of the mysteriously vanishing male. Where men once dominated, they now make up no more than 43 percent of students at American institutions of higher learning, according to 2003 statistics, and this downward trend shows every sign of continuing unabated.” (Taken from “Colleges, universities seek a few good men,” by Michael Gurian, Special to the Washington Post.)

To address the shortage of male students in college, high school administrators must address the high levels of unsuccessful male students in high school. High school guidance counselors can help address this problem by helping male students focus on what kind of quality of life awaits them without some form of education beyond high school.

“Statistics show that a young man who doesn’t finish school or go to college in 2005 will likely earn less than half what a college graduate earns. He’ll be three times more likely to be unemployed and more likely to be homeless. He’ll be more likely to get divorced, more likely to engage in violence against women and more likely to engage in crime. He’ll be more likely to develop substance-abuse problems and to be a greater burden on the economy, statistically, because men who don’t attend college pay less in Social Security and other taxes, depend more on government welfare, are more likely to father children out of wedlock and are more likely not to pay child support.”

A college education is not required to find success in life, but it can certainly help male students get a solid footing in life.

Gone are the days when marijuana was the drug of choice for America’s teens. Its users declined to 37 percent from 42 percent just six years earlier. Also down 3 percent is the use of ecstasy and methamphetamine usage is down 4 percent. So what are teens using to get high these days?

“For the first time, our national study finds that today’s teens are more likely to have abused a prescription painkiller to get high than they are to have experimented with a variety of illegal drugs,” said partnership Chairman Roy Bostock.

Counted among the favorite prescription drugs abused by teens are Vicodin, with 18 percent, OxyContin and attention-deficit disorder medications, which are abused by one in 10 teens.

The study reported that only 48 percent of participating teens said they saw a great risk in experimenting with prescription medicines. That might explain why they are growing in popularity. Respondents also cited ease of access as a major reason for trying over-the-counter drugs or prescription drugs to get high.

?Adolescent abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications represents one of the most significant developments in substance abuse trends in recent memory,? said Steve Pasierb, president & CEO of the Partnership. ?Educating parents and teenagers about the risks of abusing medications will be exceptionally challenging, but it clearly must be done.?

High school counselors in particular need to be educated because they deal first-hand with alcohol and drug abuse in high schools across the nation. Knowing the early warning signs and where to go for help are basics every school counselor should be familiar with to effectively fight prescription drug abuse in their schools.

Warning signs include, but are not limited to:

If you suspect that one of your students is abusing prescription drugs or illegal drugs, you are obligated by state law to report it. For additional information on drug abuse, or to read the full study, visit Partnership for a Drug-Free America.

High school counselors will once again be called upon to serve as grief and death counselors at a Minnesota high school where a student murdered seven students before he took his own life. More than 13 people were wounded in the unexplainable killing spree that broke out in the halls of Red Lake High School.

“They’re a vital part in getting any school back to its structure after a tragedy occurs,” said Palm Beach Lakes High School principal, Nathan Collins.

Usually high school counselors see the most students on the first school day after a tragedy, with follow-up sessions over the next few days as needed, said Bob Templeton, Palm Beach County district manager of psychological services. Children who remain unable to cope with a loss typically are referred to private therapists who can work with them and their families.

But grief counselors have found most students benefit from seeing their friends struggle with the same emotions.

“The kids find strength in each other — that’s why they come to school,” Templeton said.

While there is no easy way to handle a situation like the one at Red Lake High School, there are a few things high school counselors can do to help students through grief and death counseling.

WebMD makes the following recommendations for high school grief counselors called to assist students with coping in the midst of a tragedy.