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The COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning exacerbated the mental health needs of children and adolescents, especially among minoritized students who were disproportionately impacted by the virus. Although the pandemic has increased the demand for counseling, research finds that school counselors are often hindered by organizational constraints. Using organizational role theory, this study examined school counselors’ perceptions of their role delivering mental health supports during the pandemic. Findings indicate that school counselors reported an increased need for counseling, but faced multiple barriers to supporting students, leaving those who most needed the support particularly vulnerable.
Keywords: COVID-19, mental health, role theory, school counselorsThe global COVID-19 pandemic upended students’ lives, creating new challenges for schools as they attempted to deliver instruction to students and address their diverse needs. Students experienced social isolation, parental unemployment, food insecurity, fear of illness, and grief over deaths from the virus, which affected both their academic achievement and well-being (Hamilton & Gross, 2021). Concerns for students’ mental health mounted with evidence that rates of youth anxiety and depression soared during the pandemic (Singh et al., 2020). When schools closed or resorted to hybrid learning models in 2020, many students were also distanced from the stability and support their schools provided, compounding their mental health issues (YouthTruth, 2021). These impacts deepened preexisting racial disparities in learning and educational opportunity (Office for Civil Rights [OCR], 2021).
School counselors are uniquely positioned to promote social/emotional wellness beyond the academic core due to their training and professional standards (Gysbers & Henderson, 2012). The American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 2020) states that school counselors are “qualified to provide instruction, appraisal and advice and short-term counseling to students and referral services to students and families” (para. 6). Specifically, school counselors are trained to address students’ mental health concerns through implementation of data-driven, comprehensive school counseling programs that promote social/emotional wellness via preventative and developmental supports (ASCA, 2019; Goodman-Scott et al., 2020).
Emergent research examining school counselors’ professional experiences carrying out their responsibilities during COVID-19 suggests that the absence of in-person, face-to-face interaction with students and an increase in noncounseling duties created significant obstacles to delivering school-based support (e.g., ASCA, 2021; Savitz-Romer et al., 2021; Strear et al., 2021). Our article extends this extant research, using a mixed-methods design to examine school counselors’ experiences supporting students’ social/emotional wellness during a time of remote and hybrid learning. We use the terms mental health, well-being, and social/emotional wellness interchangeably to reflect their synonymous use in the school counseling field, the academic literature, and by our study participants.
The mental health needs of school-aged children are a prominent concern for schools and mental health professionals (Lambie et al., 2019). Anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation and attempts among youth have become increasingly prevalent over the past decade, with an estimated 20% of children and adolescents meeting the diagnostic criteria for a mental or behavioral disorder (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 2019). The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these mental health issues, particularly among students of color (OCR, 2021). Not only did minoritized youth experience disproportionate impacts of challenges brought on by the pandemic, but they also had to face the racial reckoning unfolding in the United States during 2020 (Flanagan et al., 2021; OCR, 2021).
Despite their growing mental health needs, students had limited access to school-based mental health services in the months following the pandemic’s onset. Most students who access mental healthcare do so at school (Freeman & Kendziora, 2017); historically marginalized students in particular tend to rely on schools for mental health support (Ali et al., 2019). However, the shift to remote learning created challenges to providing school-based mental health services (OCR, 2021). In fact, a nationally representative survey of school districts found that high-poverty and rural districts—those which serve many low-income students and students of color—especially struggled to provide social/emotional support to their students during COVID-19 (Vinson & Naftzger, 2021).
The pandemic particularly impacted the work of school counselors—school-based mental health professionals who provide social/emotional support to students. Counselors are an integral part of schools’ student support systems, working alongside psychologists, social workers, and nurses to offer direct and indirect group and individual services to students (ASCA, 2021; Gysbers & Henderson, 2012). Guided by a set of Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies, school counselors address educational disparities through their roles as leaders, advocates, and culturally responsive clinicians (Singh et al., 2020).
Although school counselors are trained to deliver social/emotional programming, significant changes to the professional role of the school counselor have led to confusion among education leaders about what counselors can and should do (Levy & Lemberger-Truelove, 2021). The ASCA National Model (ASCA, 2019) explicitly states that school counselors work across three domains: academic, college and career readiness, and social/emotional. School and district leaders are often unaware of what this means in practice and lack understanding of the benefits of implementing comprehensive school counseling programs; as a result, they fail to utilize school counselors as mental health professionals (Benigno, 2017; DeKruyf et al., 2013). School counselors—especially those from under-resourced urban and rural schools—frequently report having neither the time nor support to provide counseling services, with their days instead consumed by administrative tasks and other noncounseling duties that draw time away from implementing comprehensive school counseling programs (Chandler et al., 2018; Hilts et al., 2019). As such, school counselors’ specialized education, training, and expertise in social/emotional counseling may be underutilized (Blake, 2020).
School counselors, especially in low-income districts or rural settings, may be the only counseling professionals available in a school (Whitaker et al., 2019); thus, they are often called upon as critical resources during times of crisis (Pincus et al., 2020). New research suggests that school counselors encountered challenges supporting students during the pandemic due to organizational constraints. For example, school policies restricting virtual counseling and limited face-to-face interactions made it difficult for counselors to identify and address students’ mental health concerns (ASCA, 2021; Savitz-Romer et al., 2021). Thus, school counselors’ experiences during the pandemic were in many ways similar to those prior to its onset. Role confusion and lack of administrative support persisted. School counselors reported spending less time delivering individual and group counseling than they did previously, in part due to school policies that made it difficult to connect with students, such as those prohibiting video conferencing during counseling sessions (Savitz-Romer et al., 2021). The assignment of noncounseling duties also increased in the remote format, with school counselors spending a substantial amount of their time managing attendance, distributing technology, and supporting families (ASCA, 2021). Although these findings provide valuable insight into school counselors’ professional experiences generally during the pandemic, little is known about their role addressing students’ wellness concerns specifically.
This study extends early research on school counselors’ experiences during COVID-19 by examining their enactment of a key element of the ASCA National Model: supporting students’ social/emotional development (ASCA, 2019). We used role theory to understand the highly specialized role of the school counselor as it pertains to administering mental health support within the school context during the pandemic.
Role theory, situated within the organizational theory literature, is a widely used framework for conceptualizing the expectations of actors within a larger organization (Bidwell, 2001). Role theory explains an individual’s role and behavior within an organization and posits that role stress is a major contributing factor to an individual’s performance and efficacy. Role stress is composed of three constructs: role conflict, ambiguity, and overload (Bidwell, 2001; Turner, 2001). Individuals experience role conflict when they are subjected to multiple opposing expectations for their role, while role ambiguity occurs when individuals receive unclear or inconsistent expectations regarding their role responsibilities (Biddle, 1986). Role overload occurs when one has limited time and resources to meet work demands (Biddle, 1986). Understanding role stress is critical due to its effects on job performance, satisfaction, and burnout.
Role theory is useful when examining the experiences of school counselors and explaining the dilemmas they face in fulfilling their roles. Scholars investigating role stress have consistently found that school counselors report significant levels of role ambiguity, conflict, and overload (Blake, 2020; Cervoni & DeLucia-Waack, 2011; Coll & Freeman, 1997). Role ambiguity is prevalent in part because of widespread confusion as to what the role encompasses, including the degree to which counselors are mental healthcare professionals (Levy & Lemberger-Truelove, 2021; Lewis et al., 2020). Unclear job descriptions, differing expectations among school stakeholders, and the presence of other school-based mental health professionals (i.e., social workers, psychologists) exacerbate role ambiguity (DeKruyf et al., 2013).
Role conflict and overload may also be attributed to the assignment of noncounseling duties falling outside of the scope of ASCA’s (2019) definition of the school counselor role. Studies show that counselors are often given administrative responsibilities, including scheduling, administering standardized tests, and lunchroom duty (Benigno, 2017; Chandler et al., 2018). Several scholars have found that performing noncounseling duties is significantly associated with high levels of exhaustion and burnout (Holman et al., 2019), and takes time away from the job counselors are trained to do—counsel students. Our study draws on organizational role theory to identify how the COVID-19 pandemic shaped the role of the school counselor in their ability to respond to rising student mental health needs.
Although evidence shows that school counselors positively influence students’ social/emotional well-being (Whiston & Quinby, 2009), studies have yet to document whether counselors were able to enact this support during the pandemic. This study aims to fill that gap in the literature using a mixed-methods approach to capture school counselors’ lived experiences and perspectives during this unique period. We addressed the following research question: What were school counselors’ experiences providing social/emotional support to students during the COVID-19 pandemic?
This project is part of a larger study embracing a pragmatic epistemological approach (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004) to broadly explore how school counselors enacted their roles during the pandemic. The larger study utilized survey and focus group data through a sequential explanatory, mixed-methods design outlined in Figure 1 (see Savitz-Romer et al., 2021, for more information). The present study focuses exclusively on qualitative data collected from open-ended survey responses and focus group transcripts.