![]() It is hard for counselors to establish a change-based relationship and delve into the issues when we are not sure if family members are listening in or will walk into the room at any time. ![]() ![]() Guaranteeing confidentiality and privacy is a huge challenge when counselors do not have control over the environment. When kids do participate in counseling sessions, many new issues are arising. Every year, we send out surveys to students but this year roughly 35 percent have not been logging into Google classroom and are therefore unaccounted for by the schools. Prior to the pandemic, I had been working on a long term career development research project in the Cajon Valley district in San Diego. Many undocumented families do not have access to any type of government stimulus, which makes them even more vulnerable. Many of their parents have lost their jobs and have been trying to figure out how to get by. Even kids who have access to a computer and high speed Internet are facing other barriers that make it difficult to participate. Our graduate students work with a vulnerable population on the periphery, many of which have faced an incredible amount of instability in the past few months. The larger challenge, however, has been getting kids to log on for counseling sessions and to ensure that the children and youth who need the most help have access to our services. I have been impressed with their tech savvy creativity in designing new websites and finding new apps, programs, and resources to best serve their clients. Yet virtual degrees for counselors were often looked down upon as providing lesser quality learning for the necessary “people work” counselors engage in, and therefore there was not much interest from students.ĭespite facing a steep learning curve at the onset of the pandemic, our 150 to 200 graduate students who are enrolled in the school counseling and clinical mental health programs at University of San Diego transitioned quite seamlessly to the new online learning environment. ![]() Online training for school counselors has over the years become a more popular niche market as schools invested resources in developing secure platforms and confidentiality procedures. In the US context, there had always been a distinct barrier between in-person and online mental health services, which were not always seen as authentic and have faced resistance from general practitioners and counselor educators. The pandemic made online teaching a necessity overnight, shifting how we view and approach virtual learning for school counselors. We caught up with Ian to talk about providing counseling services to students both in the US and internationally. He is a founding member of the International Society for Policy Research and Evaluation of School-Based Counseling (ISPRESC) and a Distinguished Fellow for GlobalEd Leadership. Ian Martin is an Associate Professor of Counseling at the University of San Diego where he teaches courses in school counseling and career development. ![]()
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