Organization And Administration Of Guidance And Counseling Services In Public Community Colleges In California PDF Download

Counseling programs in the California community colleges play a key role in helping students succeed. Over the years, the functions counseling departments perform have increased significantly, further exacerbating the ever-present pressure to serve more students in cost-effective ways. As a result of the expansion of services absent the resources to ensure the provision of such services, the question has arisen as to what roles counseling faculty should play in the delivery of services to students. To clarify these roles, the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (Academic Senate) developed a policy paper, "The Role of Counseling Faculty in the California Community Colleges," which was adopted at its Spring 1995 Plenary Session. This paper provides useful background on counseling in the California community colleges. The reader is also referred to a paper adopted by the Academic Senate in 2003, Consultation Council Task Force on Counseling, which provides further discussion of the role of counseling faculty, the importance of counseling faculty in facilitating student success, and information on perceptions of the state of counseling in our system. While "The Role of Counseling Faculty in the California Community Colleges" described the range of activities of counseling faculty, it did not set out standards for how those roles were to be performed. Specific standards for some elements of counseling services have appeared in regulation, accreditation guidelines, and ethics statements; but nowhere had these standards been collected, reviewed, and presented systematically to the community college counseling field until the first version of this paper, "Standards of Practice for California Community College Counseling," was developed and adopted by the Academic Senate in 1997. The original paper and this revision outline effective practices, by addressing the issue of standards of practice and service for California community college counseling faculty and programs. This revision serves as an update, reflecting changes that have transpired in the student services area and incorporating philosophical changes in approaches to counseling. The document has also been renamed to recognize that counseling faculty and counseling programs are separate entities; there are services that a counseling program may provide but that may not be specifically a function of counseling faculty. One appendix is included: American Counseling Association Code of Ethics. [These Standards were adopted Spring 1997; revised and adopted Fall 2008.