The School Counsellor: A Practitioner in Search of a Profession

Abstract

School "counselling" is no longer a typically North American phenomenon but is now established practice in most Western European nations. Why have such services become part of the educational scene and what role behaviors might reasonably be expected of a professional group called "school counsellors"? The two questions are related, of course, since the social pressures which have produced these services should determine what the practitioner is supposed to do. The following attempt to deal with these questions arises from the author's conviction that the role of the counsellor is not clearly delineated and that this both inhibits healthy role identification by the practitioner and weakens support from the tax-paying public. A clarification of function is timely not only because of the current close scrutiny of educational institutions but also because of on-going social changes which are affecting schooling processes in which counsellors play a part.