Conducting Needs Assessments to Identify Necessary School-Based Counseling Services

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to shed light on the role of needs assessments in order to identify necessary school-based counseling services and better serve students within schools. Needs assessments provide foundation for an action plan to close the distance between the current situation and the ultimate objective, help to see common and critical needs of school-aged children, provide rationale to advocate school counseling services, and help in the effective use of available resources with future action plan. This chapter highlights that policy makers, those leading school counseling initiatives, and practitioners should think from a system-wide perspective to conduct needs assessment for creating school-based counseling services. There are many contextual factors that can exist in a school, a community, or larger society that contribute to the behavior or performance of students. Thus, we cannot separate the student from his or her system. That is why Roger Kaufman’s framework, namely, the Organizational Elements Model, for needs assessment was chosen for discussion since it uses a system perspective and considers needs assessment not only from an individual level but also from a greater perspective, at an organizational and societal level. This framework has five elements: mega, macro, micro, processes, and inputs. Detailed information about each element of a needs assessment, their alignment with each other, and examples about how they can be used in practice to identify necessary school-based counseling are explained throughout the chapter.