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Challenges facing professionals dealing with at risk youths
This document outlines the challenges that counselors face when working with at-risk youth. It discusses 7 main challenges: 1) ensuring competency and training, 2) recognizing and understanding counseling barriers, 3) gaining parental involvement, 4) facilitating collaboration, 5) experiencing emotional burnout, 6) dealing with unrealistic expectations and additional factors, and 7) navigating legal issues. It provides tips for counselors to effectively work with at-risk youth and avoid common pitfalls.
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Challenges facing professionals dealing with at risk youths
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- 2. Counselors who workwith at-risk youth work with young people whose lives are in constant flux. ï Adolescence is a time of physical, intellectual, emotional, and social development, during which young people confront the question, "Who am I?â ï Many children are considered to be "at- risk" due to a variety of social and economical factors. ï Adults, unlike children and adolescents, for the most part have developed sophisticated coping and adaptation skills to deal with internal and external stresses and problems of life.
- 3. There are challengesthat counselors face when working with this demographic. Challenge 1: Competency and Training ï Understand the specific issues faced by at-risk youth. ï Be trained and skilled in facilitating dialogue, providing opportunities for growth and identity development, and fostering a positive social climate within schools ï Know your theories and strategies and which are more effective ï Multicultural competence
- 4. Challenge 2: Recognizeand Understand Counseling Barriers The counselorâs task is to minimize perceived barriers, if they exists. By being informed/informative, honest, youth friendly and interested in developing a helping relationship with the young person. This empowers young clients, helping them to have a major part in finding solutions for themselves and supports self-efficacy. Possible Barriers: ï Counselor bias ï Counselor rescuing ï Client resistance ï Client mistrust ï Client ignorance of counseling process ï Client bias
- 5. Challenge 3: ParentalInvolvement ï Parents and professionals must work together to find solutions. ï Parents may be mistrusting or unwilling to work with counselor ï Challenging situations and unfortunate circumstances where their guardians may be single parents, other family members, or may be entirely absent.
- 6. Challenge 4: Collaboration(Other Professionals, Agencies, or Community) ï Counseling at-risks youths may require collaboration with school officials and teachers ï Youth-centered counselors must know the local resources available for youth in the community in order to make appropriate referrals to other counselors or youth-friendly organizations. ï Youth-centered counselors know how to develop strong relationships with other resource persons in the community so as to facilitate a smooth transition of services ï Referrals ï Lack of adequate support services
- 7. Challenge 5: EmotionallyDraining ï Job intrinsically involves counselor with other people's lives and problems and can, therefore, be emotionally draining. ï Can lead to burnout. Burnout is a syndrome of physical and emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced sense of personal accomplishment. It is a gradual process of loss that can lead to cynicism and ineffectiveness. Recently, burnout has been recognized as a problem not of the individual worker but of the social environment in which people work.
- 8. Challenge 6: Unrealistic Expectationsand Additional Factors ï Heavy caseload ï Deadlines that arenât effective ï Unclear job expectations ï Lack of support ï Increasing complexity of the job demands
- 9. Challenge 7: LegalIssues ï* Determining whether to report suspected child abuse ï * Counselor / youth confidentiality ï * Determining whether a youth poses a danger to others ï * Determining whether a youth is suicidal ï * Responding to a subpoena
- 10. Tips: Make sureyou are- ï Not telling young people what to do ï Not preaching or lecturing ï Not behaving like an expert ï Not being in control of the personâs life choices, alternatives, options ï Not imposing oneâs values, oneâs truth on others ï Not labeling and diagnosing ï Not focusing on pathologies and weaknesses
- 11. Guidance ï Academic skills support ï Organizational, study and test-taking skills ï Post-secondary planning and application process ï Career planning ï Education in understanding self and others ï Coping strategies ï Peer relationships and effective social skills ï Communication, problem-solving, decision-making, conflict resolution and study skills ï Career awareness and the world of work ï Substance abuse education ï Multicultural/diversity awareness
- 12. Individual Youth Planning ïGoal setting ï Academic plans ï Career plans ï Problem solving ï Education in understanding of self, including strengths and weaknesses ï Transition plans
- 13. Responsive Services ï Individual and small-group counseling ï Individual/family/school crisis intervention ï Peer facilitation ï Consultation/collaboration ï Referrals
- 14. System Support ï Professionaldevelopment ïConsultation, collaboration and teaming ï Program management and operation
- 15. System Support ï Professionaldevelopment ïConsultation, collaboration and teaming ï Program management and operation
Editor's Notes
- #4Â Though these theories entail many aspects helpful to developing strong counseling relationships, they may not always be appropriate for at-risk Afro-American clients. For example, person-centered therapy advocates a nondirective approach, which may be ineffective for Afro-American clients who may be more comfortable, especially in the critical beginning point of counseling, with structure and evidence of solutions to problems (Ziter, 1987). Youth who are facing very realistic problems that require immediate action may perceive a nondirective approach that places the direction of the counseling solely on the client as disrespectful or unhelpful. In addition, the psychoanalytic concept of resistance may hinder counselors working with Afro American youth as they mistake the child's appropriate preliminary mistrust as a refusal on the client's part to truly work in therapy or as indicative of psychic conflict (Corey). Finally, cognitive therapies that place the locus of change or control on the child's thought processes may not pay enough attention to the influence of systemic qualities, such as racism and the socioeconomic residual effects of slavery, on the client's world view and life circumstances.Counselors providing multiculturally competent counseling services to at-risk Afro-American youth must be aware of the origins of this population's initial "healthy cultural paranoia," or understandable wariness, toward counseling and should work to prevent unintentionally furthering these discriminatory practices (Ridley, 1984). Additionally, multiculturally competent counselors recognize the impact of racism on psychological health and understand that the subjugated history of Afro-Americans in the United States affects the current perceptions and barriers surrounding Afro-American identity and achievement. Accurate conceptualizations of Afro-American clients cannot occur without acknowledging the insidious nature of racism, which can force Afro-Americans to negotiate a bicultural identity to function in both the majority status and marginalized cultures (Wilson & Stith, 1997; Ziter, 1987). For example, Afro-American students experiencing academic, behavioral, and emotional difficulties in school may be struggling with institutional racism and stereotyping that have been undetected or ignored by administrators and teachers, or they may be employing coping tactics such as "stereotype threat" as survival mechanisms in a perceived hostile environment
- #5Â counselors must have a thorough understanding of culture and the ways it impacts child and adolescent mental health, psychopathology, service utilization, assessment, and treatment and also have skills in providing culturally responsive services. School counselors also need to be aware of their own cultural biases and assumptions so that they can be effective in improving the learning climate of their students
- #7Â youthThey are therefore challenged to build formal and informal alliances and support systems with professionals and community activists who believe in and support healthy youth initiatives. Youth-centered counselors know how to develop strong relationships with other resource persons in the community so as to facilitate a smooth transition of services for youth. Youth-centered counselors apply specific networking skills involving communication, rapport building, trust-building skills and team work when working with organizations and other professionals. However, youth-centered counselors are often confronted with the lack of existing physical and social infrastructure supporting youth in Latin American and Caribbean countries. They are therefore challenged to build formal and informal alliances and support systems with professionals and community activists who believe in and support healthy youth initiatives.
- #11Â According to these results, having to determine whether a client was suicidal and having to determine whether to report suspected child abuse were the most prevalent issues faced by school counselors. Another prevalent issue for school counselors was having to determine whether a client posed a danger to others. The legal issues encountered least often were being asked to turn over records that the school counselor considered to be confidential and being subpoenaed to appear as a witness in a legal proceeding.