A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY ON PUBLIC SCHOOL COUNSELORS' PERCEPTIONS OF SERVICE SUPPORTS AND BARRIERS FOR STUDENTS EXPERIENCING HOMELESSNESS
Date
2022-05
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Austin Peay State University
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to explore public school counselors’ beliefs about service supports and barriers to the academic success of secondary students experiencing homelessness in public schools. The theories that guided this study were Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and social justice theory. Participants for the study were 10 school counselors from a large suburban district located in the Southeast, with 3 to 22 years of experience working in secondary public school settings. This qualitative study utilized a phenomenological research design, and videoconferencing technology was used to conduct in-depth, semistructured interviews with the participants. Further, thematic coding was used to analyze the data. Findings indicated that school counselors received limited or no preservice training to meet the needs of students experiencing homelessness. The findings further revealed that school counselors felt unprepared to comprehensively meet the needs of students experiencing homelessness. Participants also reported a lack of professional development related to homelessness, challenges with student identification and service delivery, and limited access to resources for students experiencing homelessness. Implications for practice include embedding education about homelessness into preservice curriculum and providing ongoing professional development for supporting the needs of students experiencing homelessness. Implications for future research include conducting an evaluation of required preservice coursework at universities that provide school counselor training and have a Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) designation and replicating this study in other school districts to determine if similar results are yielded in other public school contexts.
Keywords: homelessness, students experiencing homelessness, secondary students,
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, social justice theory, school counselors, public schools
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Keywords
Student counselors -- Training of, Public schools, Homeless students