Contextual School Counseling

Abstract

The current article provides a framework for training professional school counselors based on contextual school counseling (CSC). This framework includes a competency-based approach to training using the clusters identified by the Council of Counseling Psychology Training Programs (CCPTP) working group on master’s-level professional psychology training—professionalism, relational, science, application, and systems. Foundational competencies for school counselors are proposed under each cluster, and the differences between clinical mental health competencies and school counseling competencies are emphasized and discussed. The proposed framework is followed by implications for counseling psychologists and counselor educators who train school counselors, and include supervision of school counselors-in-training, curriculum needs for school counselors-in-training, practice for school counselors, and suggestions for related future research.