Childhood bereavement support is provided by a variety of professionals including chaplains, social workers, mental health counselors, psychologists, child life specialists, nurses, school counselors, thanatologists, and educators. This chapter discusses the issue of professional accountability and ethical considerations when working with bereaved children and their families in order to offer a framework for standards for this important type of support. It is not enough to solely provide orientation training to volunteers, it is also important to offer continued training for both new and existing volunteers. Organizations that provide support to bereaved children should establish written, agreed upon standards of practice to which program staff and volunteers are held accountable. The parent or legal guardian of children attending individual support, peer support groups, or grief camps should be provided a clear description of services being provided. Services provided should fit within the mission, vision, and values of the organization.

Because future practicum and internship placements depend on the willingness of the field placement site, it is important that one should always be mindful of how one should complete the final internship placement. Ideally, besides completing all internship requirements, one will express their gratitude to the field site supervisor and colleagues in the school, agency and so forth, in addition to saying goodbye to the clients. A job search involves many facets: planning, résumé writing, mock interviewing, applying, interviewing, following up, dealing with rejection, entertaining an offer, accepting a job, and negotiating salary, to name a few. This chapter is devoted to completing the practicum/internship sequence and preparing for the job search. It addresses termination of the field supervisor–intern relationship. It also covers preparing for the job search, including preparing a résumé or curriculum vitae, letters of reference, cover letters, interviewing, and issues of licensure and credentialing.

The practicum and internship experience is the backbone of any counseling program. Beginning a practicum/internship represents a major step in our development as a counselor. The goal of this book is to provide orientation and guidance to help us successfully navigate our field placements. This chapter first discusses various general issues regarding the counseling profession itself; then, it offers a brief overview of the practicum/internship process. It reviews some basics of the counseling profession. The chapter briefly describes some of the key organizations that one will likely encounter as a student or over the course of our professional career. It provides brief introduction to the counseling profession, professional counseling organizations, licensure and certification, theoretical approaches, and our practicum/internship experience. The counseling profession has experienced dramatic growth in the past two decades and the future suggests continued expansion, particularly for the areas of clinical mental health, addictions, and clinical rehabilitation counseling.

Multiculturalism is a critical issue in the counseling profession. Cultural humility is essential for sound, ethical, effective practice, particularly when working with diverse populations. Multicultural counselor education seeks to establish a foundation for cultural pluralism in counselor training, counseling practice, and in the manner counselors conceptualize multiculturalism. This chapter provides an overview of some of the issues related to becoming a culturally competent counselor. Because of the wide variation in global cultures, no one can reasonably claim to be an expert. Therefore, it is highly recommended for counselors to continue their education well beyond the classroom through workshops, networking, and reading texts on multicultural counseling.

This chapter adresses how to maintain a healthier, more balanced life during the practicum and internship. It provides insights into recognizing stressors that accompany counseling a struggling population of clients. The chapter provides several exercises for the purposes of self-reflection. The ability to step back from an experience, however successful or disappointing, can be key skill for personal success as a counselor. The chapter explains how to develop and maintain a healthy and mindful lifestyle. It also includes assessments on quality of life, burnout, and mindfulness.

This chapter covers courses taught in the school counseling tracks or graduate counseling programs. School counselors are certified/licensed educators who aim to improve student success for all students by implementing a comprehensive school counseling program. These courses focus on the professional issues faced by school counselors and prepare students to work with children and adolescents in school environments. These courses emphasize the contemporary role of the school counselor as leader and advocate in delivering school counseling programs to all students. Emphasis is placed on acquiring the awareness, knowledge, and skills necessary to negotiate the cultural, educational, and contextual forces that impact the lives and academic achievement of students in a pluralistic society. The chapter focuses discussion and activities on these topics and others, including school culture, learning, classroom management, structured groups, counseling children and adolescents, and program development.

This chapter focuses on career counseling courses. In this course, students learn how career development theory can be applied to the practice of career counseling. There are three course objectives that are essential to this course: students will be able to identify career development theories and decision-making models; students will understand the roles, functions, and settings of contemporary career counselors; and students will practically demonstrate career and educational planning, placement, follow-up, and evaluation using mock clients or case study examples. The salient career counseling theories that should be touched on in this course are: Super’s life-space, life span theory; Roe’s personality theory of career choice; Gottfredson’s theory of circumscription, compromise, and self-creation; Holland’s theory of types and person–environment interactions; Krumboltz’s learning theory of career counseling; Lent, Brown, and Hackett’s social cognitive career theory; and Savickas’s career construction theory.

The orientation course in counseling programs is called many names: Introduction to Counseling, Orientation to the Profession, or Becoming a Professional Counselor. Regardless of the name, these courses are content heavy and are often placed at the beginning of the student’s journey. The course provides a comprehensive overview of the entire profession. Counselor educators cover roughly 100 years of important historical events, individuals, theories, philosophies, laws, social movements, research, licensure, specialties, and more related to the counseling profession. They also cover future trends, such as social justice issues, technology, social media, politics, and other future directions of our profession. This chapter, like the others to follow, breaks down this content-heavy course. Important topics covered in this course are discussed. A brief review of the recent pertinent literature is examined. Also discussed are different approaches to prepare and teach this course. We share our personal experience when teaching this course. Lastly, course assignments used to cover important topics are described.

Life-span development courses cover the human experience from conception to death. Counselor educators use a holistic approach encompassing the physiological, cognitive, emotional, cultural, and social changes clients experience. These courses cover a great amount of content regarding an individual’s development from conception to death. Human development courses help students view their clients from a developmental perspective with the understanding that development does not take place in isolation; rather human development is deeply embedded within and inseparable from the context of family, social network, and culture. This course is also designed to help counselors recognize the importance of individual and systemic influences on human growth and development. This chapter focuses on theories of individual and family development across the life span, normal and abnormal personality development, addictions and substance abuse, and biological, neurological, and physiological factors that affect human development, among others.

Clients are vulnerable. They seek counseling and put their trust in clinicians to provide effective treatment. Without intentionality and adherence to this profession’s ethical guidelines, clinicians may harm clients. Ethics courses focus on the codes of ethics for professional counselors, marriage and family therapists, and school counselors. Students will also discuss ethical dilemmas they may face that may not be specifically addressed in an ethical code. When faced with these dilemmas, students will be taught to use an ethical decision-making model.