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Legal and Ethical Considerations 33 TEC § 33.006

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Legal and Ethical Considerations 33 TEC § 33.006

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According to the Texas Education Code, it is the responsibility of the counselor to help students fully develop academically, personally, socially, and as related to their career (33 TEC § 33.006). Small group counseling helps students in these ways. Specifically, helping students grow in their self-confidence and self-competence will help them fully develop in these other ways. By completing this specific small groups, I am adhering to the Texas Education Code.

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Legal and Ethical Considerations 33 TEC § 33.004

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Legal and Ethical Considerations 33 TEC § 33.004

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The Texas Education Code states that all curriculum used by the school counselor must be accessible to parents or guardians during school hours (33 TEC § 33.004). I will make the curriculum I use for this small group available so that parents or guardians can review it upon request.

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If I were to utilize Yalom's Therapeutic Factors, I would use interpersonal learning (Yalom, 1995). I would use this because it allows individuals to hear other's perspective and see things in a different way. Students who struggle with self-confidence could be given praise from others who see them in a positive way. Sometimes individuals who struggle with self-confidence have trouble seeing the positive traits in themselves.

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I would utilize participative (democratic) leadership. In this style of leadership, group members can contribute but the leader still maintains control (Cherry, 2021). This approach would work best with this specific group because these students lack belief in themselves and need to be empowered. The counselor can still act as a guiding source.

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I will work with students through the three stages of group dynamics. The stages are: Stage 1 Getting acquainted/setting norms/building trust; Stage 2 Working together to accomplish individual and group goals; Stage 3 Ending the group (Missouri Professional School Counselors and Counselor Educators, 2015).

Stage 1: We will use ice-breaker questions to begin to get to know each other. Group norms will be established based off ground rules. The counselor will discuss privacy and confidentiality with the students, but also will remind students that there may be a chance other students may make the wrong choice to break confidentiality.

Stage 2: We will refer back to our ground rules for student accountability. I will check in with students on their goal progress.

Stage 3: Group members can share how they are feeling about the group ending. They can share positive outcomes from the group and share ideas about how they will use what they learned in the future. The counselor will remind students that they should still not discuss the content of the group with others.

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I would utilize the above resource to establish ground rules (Missouri Professional School Counselors and Counselor Education, 2015). I would project a copy of this table on the board and have students come up with ideas of what expectations one through nine look like and sound like. I would make adjustments as necessary if students were not defining expectations in a useful and helpful way. I would utilize all of the expectations listed, and I would also give students to come up with one to three more expectations that they would like implemented. I would then make a new copy that was filled in with student input and have each member sign it. I would post it in the small group room during each session.

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I could not locate a consent or assent form for my district or campus. I would utilize the attached form to obtain consent from parents/guardians (Missouri Professional School Counselors and Counselor Educators, 2015). I would create a similar informed assent form for students. This assent form would explain that the group would be confidential, except in the case that information was shared that indicated that anyone was in danger or information was shared that had to be legally handed over to someone else. It would also explain to students that their parents or guardians have the right to information about their own student. Students would sign and return this form.

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I will utilize the "TAP-In" process. I will meet with students as a group for part T and provide them with a handout of information that they can keep (Missouri Professional School Counselors and Counselor Educators, 2015). I will call students individually for part A. After looking at results I will gather information about the students from teachers and administrators using an informal survey. I will ask questions such as, "Could this student present a risk for maintaining privacy and confidentiality?" After receiving all information I will complete part P and decide who can be a part of the group.

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I will disseminate the information for my small group in the following ways.

Counselors: I will share my Small Group Action Plan with fellow counselors and invite their feedback and collaboration. I will make adjustments as necessary.

Administrators: I will create an infographic that shows my small group plan and purpose and e-mail it to my administrators.

Teachers: I will send the same infographic I send to administrators. I will also send a digital form in which teachers can recommend students to participate based on the group purpose.

Parents: I will post information and graphics on my school website about the small group. Parents will be invited to contact me if they think their child will benefit from the small group.

Students: Information is disseminated to students via a projector during their lunch. I will create a slide offering the small group that includes a brief description. I will have a drop box outside of my office for notes from students who are interested. The directions will be for students to write on a small piece of paper their name and that they are interested in a being a part of the small group. This way the student can discreetly join. The student could ask their teacher privately if they can leave the room to bring the note to the counselor's drop box.

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American School Counselor Association. (2021). ASCA mindsets and behaviors for student success: K-12 College-, career-, and life-readiness standards for every student. https://www.schoolcounselor.org/getmedia/7428a787-a452-4abb-afec-d78ec77870cd/Mindsets-Behaviors.pdf

Cherry, M. (2021, August 11). Leadership styles and frameworks you should know. verywellmind. Leadership Styles and Frameworks (verywellmind.com)

Education Code, 2 Tex. Educ. Code § 33.002-33.007

Missouri Professional School Counselors and Counselor Educators. (2015). Professional school counselor small group counseling guide: A professional school counselor’s guide to planning, implementing, and evaluating school-based counseling groups. http://www.missouricareereducation.org/doc/smallgroup/SmallGroupCounseling.pdf

Yalom, I. D. (4th Ed.). (1995). The theory and practice of group psychotherapy. Basic Books.

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Through this small-group, students will be able to work towards the following Mindset and Behavior Standards.

M 4. Self-confidence in ability to succeed
M 5. Belief in using abilities to their fullest to achieve high-quality results and outcomes
B-SMS 6. Ability to identify and overcome barriers
B-SS 8. Advocacy skills for self and others and ability to assert self, when necessary

(American School Counselor Association, 2021)

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The Confident are a group of several fourth graders who are nine or ten years old. They go to school at a fourth and fifth grade campus. These students were chosen based on teacher referral and survey results. Students on campus were given a survey on issues that they deal with or problems that they face. All of these students indicated that they struggled with belief in themselves. Beyond this, teacher communication also indicated that these students struggle with belief in themselves and that this has negatively impacted their academic work and their relationships with peers. The counselor is intervening to provide extra support for these students