Professional School Counselor Technology Use for Communication During COVID-19

Abstract

In the past, professional school counselors have been open to the idea of using technology to improve school counseling programs and services, but questioned how it is possible to do so aligned with American School Counseling Association (ASCA) national model components and ethics. They felt a lack of support and training to implement technology use in the comprehensive school counseling program. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the globe, using technology in school counseling programs quickly transformed from being an option to a necessity as schools closed their doors. Students, faculty, and staff went remote almost overnight. The question suddenly changed from asking if technology should be used to support the counseling program to which technologies would support ASCA National Model components. To meet the requirements of the ASCA components, communication is key. Counselors must effectively communicate with students, families, stakeholders, and other educators. Most communication done in the Direct component of the ASCA model is required to be confidential, adding another obstacle to communication. This study included 55 participants that are certified professional school counselors employed in K-12 schools to gain real-time insight into the use of technology for communication during COVID-19 The online survey results revealed that although professional school counselors were thrust into using a myriad of technology and faced some of the same issues previously related to the ASCA national model ethics and confidentiality, COVID-19 pushed some professional school counselors out of their comfort zone with the unprecedented use of technology with some positive results.