Rehabilitation Counselor Supervisors’ Perceptions of Counselor Professional Dispositions for Rural Service Delivery

Professional dispositions are recognized as a fundamental to counselor professional practice, but this construct remains largely undefined. This qualitative study explored the professional dispositions that rehabilitation counselors should demonstrate for effective service delivery, particularly within rural areas. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews to gather perspectives on the conceptualization and identification of professional dispositions in the field. Participants for this study were practicing rehabilitation counseling supervisors ( n = 14) from five states and largely represented state/federal vocational rehabilitation agencies ( n= 12). A preliminary, field-driven definition of the term professional disposition is presented, and primary dispositional categories are identified. Findings indicated three major dispositional themes that are necessary and generalizable to rehabilitation service delivery: traditional rehabilitation counseling values, professional attitude and conduct, and ethically principled behavior. A theme discrete to rural rehabilitation is also identified, community oriented. These domains reflect a focus on the client, the agency, and the community. The concept of ethically principled practice was a bridging theme that connects and is interwoven across the three main themes. Implications for practice and future research suggestions are also discussed.

Effectiveness of a Business Development Training for Rehabilitation Counselors Who Work With Consumers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

The passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act has placed increased emphasis on business engagement for vocational rehabilitation agencies, yet many rehabilitation counselors are not prepared to work with businesses. The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the initial effectiveness of a business development training for rehabilitation counselors who work with consumers who are blind or visually impaired. A secondary purpose was to report on the sample’s pretraining status on variables associated with business development. Participants were 80 counselors and counselor supervisors employed by four separate agencies who completed the 19-h in-person training. Data were collected from participants prior to and immediately following the training. Outcome variables were self-perceived knowledge, skills, and comfort level with business development activities and measured business development knowledge and self-efficacy. Prior to the training, participants recognized the importance of, and a personal need for training in, business development and perceived moderate levels of comfort, knowledge, and skills. Participants demonstrated statistically significant increases on all outcome measures, with effect sizes ranging from medium to large. These results provide support for the effectiveness of the training in improving business development outcomes in the short term. Additional research is needed to evaluate its long-term effectiveness.

Multi combined Adlerian supervision in Counseling

For counselor professional and counselor education, supervision is an important process, in which more experienced professional helps and guides less experienced professional. To provide an effective and beneficial supervision, various therapy, development, or process based approaches and models have been developed. In addition, different eclectic models integrating more than one model have been developed. In this paper, as a supervision model, multi combined Adlerian supervision model is proposed. The model includes Adlerian supervision and its integration with discrimination model (DM; Bernard, 1979). DM is one of the most known counseling supervision model and Adlerian therapy is an important theory to understand human nature in both counseling and supervision settings. Since supervision is one of the important concepts in counseling, the current integrated model important is useful for counselors and counselor educators for their supervision practice. Theoretical tenets of the pieces of the integration first are explained by reviewing the literature. Then, the current model and its process are explained. Limitations and strengths are discussed with implications for counselor supervisors.

Developing and Sustaining a Regional School Counselor Leadership Team

This qualitative research study explored the development and sustainability of a regional school counseling leadership team (RSCLT) organized by district school counselor supervisors. Four supervisors participated in two rounds of individual interviews. The data revealed five themes: (a) experience as chair; (b) leadership representation and structure; (c) resources, policies, and procedures; (d) professional development; and (e) university collaborations. Findings indicate that an RSCLT provides support for ongoing, meaningful, productive regional professional development for school counselors and assists smaller districts with limited resources. We discuss implications for school counselors and district school counselor supervisors.

Rehabilitation Counselor Selections of Service Options for Persons with Learning Disabilities

The study Investigated how general caseload carrying rehabilitation counselors and counselor supervisors would rate the appropriateness of selected service categories when presented with a description of a client as learning disabled. The study also investigated whether subject gender, years of experience as a rehabilitation counselor or counselor supervisor, degree type, participation in inservice training about persons with learning disabilities, previous experience with persons with learning disabilities, or whether the subject had a learning disability would affect selection of service categories. It was found that vocational training and on-the-job training were significantly different from work adjustment training and direct job placement. Of all the variables, only years of experience was significantly related to the selection of a particular service category. These findings appear to support vocational training and on-the-job training as more often selected by rehabilitation specialists as appropriate for clients with learning disabilities.