Closing in on the Statewide Implementation of a Comprehensive Guidance Program Model

Abstract

Children and adolescents growing up in the worlds of today are facing a bewildering array of new and old challenges. A rapidly changing work world and labor force; violence in the home, school, and community; divorce; teenage suicide; substance abuse; and sexual experimentation are just a few examples. These challenges are not abstract aberrations. These challenges are real, and they are having substantial impact on the personal/social, career, and academic development of our children and adolescents (Gysbers & Henderson, 1994). In the 1980s, in response to challenges such as these, individuals inside and outside of education began to call for education reform. Education reform begun in the 1980s, to respond in part to these challenges, continues today and probably will continue into the 21st century. Unfortunately, many education reform efforts during the 1980s neglected the field of guidance. Little was said then about the contributions of guidance and the work of school counselors to the overall achievement of educational goals. This lack of attention to guidance and the work of school counselors continues to this day This omission is serious because: Although counselors are often seen as peripheral to the mainstream of education, they in fact occupy a crucial position. For this reason, efforts to improve the nation's schools and create a more equitable system require careful consideration of guidance and counseling (Hart & Jocobi, 1992, p. 80). Understanding the important contributions school counselors make in the schools of Missouri to respond to these and similar challenges, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (MDESE) undertook the development of the Missouri Comprehensive Guidance Program (MCGP) in 1984. The goal of the MCGP was to refocus and redirect guidance activities and develop guidance and the work of school counselors in the schools within a program framework. It was based on work that had begun in 1981 to restructure guidance in the St. Joseph Missouri School District (Hargens & Gysbers, 1984). In turn, the work on restructuring guidance programs in St. Joseph was based on earlier work by Gysbers (1978) and Gysbers and Moore (1974;1981). The first version of the MCGP was designed for use at the secondary level. It was field tested in selected secondary schools in Missouri from 1984 to 1985 until the close of the 1987-1988 school year. While this field testing was taking place, work was underway to extend the MCGP to the elementary school level. This work was completed during 1987-1988 allowing training on the full K-12 MCGP to begin during the 1988-1989 school year continuing on until the close of the 1997-1998 school year. During this time period (14 school years) school counselors and administrators in 441 out of 525 school districts across Missouri received training on how to implement the MCGP in their local school districts. The MCGP contains three major elements: content, organizational framework, and resources. Figure 1 provides a graphic representation of the MCGP. The content element of the program consists of student competencies grouped into the three areas of career planning and exploration, knowledge of self and others, and educational and vocational development. The organizational framework element of the program contains structural components, program components, and school counselor time allocations. The structural components define and provide a rationale for the program as well as present the management structures necessary to operate a program. The program components identify and describe the four parts of the delivery system that organize the program's guidance activities. Suggested distributions of school counselor time necessary to carry out the guidance activities of the program components also are shown. Finally, the third element of the MCGP describes the resources necessary to fully support the day-by-day operations of the program (Gysbers, Starr, & Magnuson, 1998). …