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Article Excerpt
High school students across the nation consistently report the use of substances as evidenced by data collected from the annual Monitoring the Future study (Johnston, O'Malley, & Bachman, 2003). Alcohol is the most commonly used drug among high school students with 35.4% of 10th- and 48.6% of 12th-grade students reported to have used it in the past 30 days. For illicit substances (e.g., marijuana, amphetamines), 20.8% of 10th- and 25.4% of 12th-grade students reported to have used one of these drugs in the past 30 days (Johnston et al., 2003). A small proportion of students who experiment and regularly use substances will go on to develop more severe substance abuse problems that significantly affect their lives (Newcomb, 1995; Shelder & Block, 1990). For example, in 2002 it was estimated that 11.6% of children and adolescents in the United States between the ages of 12 and 17 years were currently using illicit drugs, and 8.9% of this age group could be classified with a diagnosis of substance abuse or dependence (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2003).
In the school setting, the counselor can be a source of support for students in many areas of their lives, including academic, social, mental health, and substance abuse concerns (Sink, 2005). For example, the school counselor can assist the student with the identification of a problem and referral to appropriate resources. In fact, students report that one of the people they would talk to about a substance use problem is their school counselor (Mason, 1997; Palmer & Ringwalt, 1988). As such, counselors may be the first professional contact for a student with a substance abuse problem in many school settings. Therefore, it is important to understand the practices and training levels of school counselors for working with students with substance abuse problems.
* Prior Research on School Counselor Practices
A review of the research literature reveals that there are few studies that have examined the practices and training levels of school counselors regarding assisting students with substance abuse problems. Specifically, only three studies were found that surveyed school counselors about their perceptions of working with students with substance abuse issues. Vail-Smith and Knight (1995) surveyed a sample (N = 109) of elementary school counselors in North Carolina about their practices when working with children of parents who abuse substances. They found that almost all the participants in their sample indicated that it was important that counselors are able to provide counseling and referral services to children of parents who abuse substances. Nevertheless, more than two thirds of their sample (70%) indicated that prior college course work was inadequate in preparing them to work with such students. Furthermore, Vail-Smith and Knight found that their sample reported lack of knowledge and skills as the two most frequent barriers, respectively, to providing services to children of parents who abuse substances.
Goldberg and Governali (1995) surveyed a sample of school counselors (N = 54) in central New York across all grade levels (i.e., elementary, middle, and high school) about their preparation in the area of substance abuse. These researchers found that slightly less than half of their sample (47%) reported having taken a drug counseling course and slightly more than half (55%) indicated taking a drug education course. Counselors were also asked whether they felt adequately prepared and comfortable to counsel students with substance abuse problems depending on the type of substance used. More than half of the sample (59%) felt adequately prepared and comfortable counseling students about alcohol, whereas only a few (11%) felt the same regarding steroids. In general, counselors felt most prepared and comfortable counseling students when the drugs were alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. In contrast, counselors felt least prepared and comfortable counseling students when the drugs were inhalants, stimulants, hallucinogens, and steroids. Furthermore, approximately one third of the sample (30%) indicated that they felt neither adequately prepared nor comfortable in their ability to identify students with substance problems. When asked about desiring more information on specific types of drugs, approximately half of the sample wanted more information on alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana and approximately two thirds of the sample wanted more information on substances such as inhalants, stimulants, hallucinogens, steroids, and over-the-counter drugs.
Coll (1995) surveyed a sample of school counselors (N = 124) in one state about their schools' procedures for identifying students with substance abuse problems. More specifically, the researcher indicated that his sample was taken from a population of public school counselors in a Rocky Mountain state. He found that 46% of the counselors in the sample indicated that their school did not have any formalized procedures for identifying students with substance abuse problems, whereas 50.2% of the sample reported that their school did have such procedures. Counselors were also asked about the effectiveness of the prevention programming in their schools for identifying students with substance abuse problems. For this question, 38% of the sample indicated that the programming in their school was not effective in identifying students with substance abuse problems, 20.2% reported being unsure of the effectiveness, and 41.8% indicated the programming was effective in identifying students with substance abuse problems. When asked about the percentage of students in their schools with substance abuse problems, 41.8% of the sample indicated that more than 10% of the students at their school experienced substance abuse problems. Furthermore, 62% of the sample indicated that at least 6% of the students at their school had substance abuse problems.
* Limitations of Prior Research
The results from the limited number of available studies, reviewed previously, fail to provide an adequate picture of training levels and needs of school counselors for working with students with substance abuse problems. First, each of the prior studies included small samples of school counselors. Thus, it is difficult to obtain accurate estimates of...
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