Context and conceptualization of supervision in school counseling practicum

• Main Author: Nicasio, Marissa S.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2019
• Subjects: Educational counseling; Practicums; Student counselors—Supervision of; Counseling; Educational Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/520
• Institution: De La Salle University

Supervision of counseling and psychotherapy is acknowledged as an important skill and process to adequately prepare counselors for professional accountability. Among school counselors, supervision aims to guide the novice counselor to advance to a higher degree of professional development and competence. In the Philippines, despite the enactment of Republic Act 9258 or the Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004, which regulates the practice of counseling, supervision was not acknowledged to play an important part in counselor training and education. ). The call to monitor and evaluate how supervision is carried out has been consistently echoed by both foreign and local literature alike. At present, there has been no quantitative data available regarding how much supervision is provided to school counselor trainees in local literature. Consequently, this paper aimed to illustrate what happens within the school counseling practicum that best describes supervision. By looking at the perspectives of all three stakeholders-- the supervisee, the site supervisor, and the practicum coordinator the study was able to depict individual accounts and present a collective view on supervision in the school counseling setting. Using the collective case study approach of Stake (1995) and guided by the social constructivist framework, the paper examined the perceptions and experiences of the main key players in practicum supervision -- the supervisee, the site supervisor, and the practicum coordinator – to present and discuss a more objective and clearer perspective on school counseling supervision. Within-case analysis of eight case reports of the triad and cross-case analysis of themes of each stakeholder were presented. Comparison between actual experiences and elements of ideal supervision were discussed, as well as points of convergence and divergence across the themes from the narratives of the stakeholders. Implications and recommendations for practice, counselor education programs and policies on regulating practice were also discussed.