Part One

Role of the School Counselor in Promoting College and Career Readiness

Curry and Milsom (2017) define college readiness as the disposition and mindset that enables a student to understand the structure and culture of postsecondary education and hence, to successfully navigate the challenges of college. On the other hand, career readiness has to do with possessing the technical, employability, and academic skills required for effective functioning in the workplace (Curry & Milsom, 2017). Different stakeholders play different roles in promoting students college and career readiness.

The role of the school counselor in promoting such readiness covers three domains: social/personal, career, and academic (Curry & Milsom, 2017). School counselors provide advising sessions as well as individual and group counseling sessions to guide students in identifying their hobbies and talents, and selecting courses effectively. They provide students with skills, assessments, as well as college and career information to help them understand the culture and structure of post-secondary education, the admission processes, costs, and the employability skills needed for success in the workforce. This helps to enhance career satisfaction and college acceptance in later years. School counselors also organize forums and workshops with community partners, parents, and other faculty members to help them understand their specific roles in getting students career and college ready, and to educate them on the strategies that they could use to achieve the same (Curry & Milsom, 2017).

On the academic domain, school counselors collaborate with educators to help learners establish strong academic foundations by supporting them to take up advanced placement courses and introducing them to college exploration programs, which they could use to assess their readiness for college (Paolini, 2019). Advanced placement programs expose students to college-level academic material, which helps them develop their critical thinking, technology, communication, problem-solving, and general intellectual skills (Paolini, 2019). Through classroom workshops, school counselors educate students on the college majors they need to take up to pursue specific careers and the qualifications associated with those majors (Paolini, 2019). Finally, school counselors offer individual and group counseling sessions to help students develop the attitudes, emotional skills, and social skills needed for success in college and the workplace (Curry & Milsom, 2017). For instance, school counselors play a fundamental role in helping students understand their personal values, beliefs, cultural heritage, and biases, all of which could potentially affect their ability to interact effectively with others. They journey with the student to develop a positive affirmation for themselves and others, and to appreciate diversity, which increases their readiness for both college and the workplace (Curry & Milsom, 2017).

The school counselor could use a range of developmentally-appropriate career interventions and assessments in promoting career and college readiness among P-12 students. For P1 to first grade students, counselors could use play therapy, which could either be integrated into the counseling curriculum or in the classroom (Curry & Milsom, 2017). Explorative play provides the most appropriate platform for teaching career-related insights to children. As part of explorative play, the counselor could provide play items and attire associated with different careers, such as firefighters, safari guides, or doctors, and have them play these roles (imitative role play) as part of exploring the careers they wish to pursue (Curry & Milson, 2017). Counselors could also use Ericksonian play therapy, where parallel communication is used to explain a metaphorical concept to students (Curry & Milson, 2017). For instance, they could use a puppet to explain what people in different careers do in a way that promotes fun and engagement (Curry & Milson, 2017).

Counselors could use recognition and matching activities to assess students knowledge on careers (Curry & Milsom, 2017). For instance,...

…as that of a doctor, nurse, fire fighter, tour guide, and so on. This helps them explore different careers and obtain a view of what different occupations entail. Ericksonian play therapy could also be used as a form of play to educate kindergarten children about different careers. This mostly involves the use of a puppet to ask and respond to career-related questions through parallel communication. Another appropriate intervention is to organize sessions for children to visit appropriate sites or workplaces to see, interact, and play with actual people doing those jobs (Curry & Milsom, 2017). For instance, to educate about firefighting, they could take the students to the local fire department, and have them experience a firefighters role by putting on firefighter badges, helmets, and play with real firefighters.

For second and third graders, interventions need to encourage task attempt, promote a sense of personal achievement, enhance fun, and build social skills such as trust, teamwork, collaboration, and conflict-resolution (Curry & Milsom, 2017). An appropriate intervention is incorporating career exploration activities into the curriculum. lay techniques could be used to make such activities more fun and engaging. For instance, the counselor and educator could develop a game, where students are assigned numbers or identifiers and take turns picking cards with their identifier numbers and responding to simple career-related questions contained therein. If they are unsure of an answer, they are allowed to pick a colleague in their team to assist them as a way of building collaborative and teamwork skills. Role play and story-telling could also be used as an intervention with this student group to develop career and college language the educator could help the students use technology to access websites such as O*Net, which give information on different careers such as required qualifications, job outlook, and what people in…