Introduction
This project includes leading a counseling group at the school website aimed at the improvement of academic outcomes. The target population for the suggested intervention is Spanish adolescent students. They make a minority at school and frequently demonstrate poor academic achievements compared to their White classmates. Therefore, a set of actions is needed to reveal the causes of the problem and stimulate the improvement of academic performance among Spanish adolescent students.
Theoretical Foundations for Group Counseling
Group counseling is grounded on diverse theories that can be more or less effective in different settings applied to different individuals. One of the most popular foundations for counseling is the psychoanalytic approach. In fact, it has influenced many of the existing group counseling models. It is based on Sigmund Freud’s concepts of psychoanalysis and their application both to an individual and a group (Corey, 2016). It focuses on unconscious conflicts and transference. Still, the major idea is that the past has a significant impact on the present ad the way a personality is functioning. Some other important concepts of psychoanalysis include anxiety, ego-defense mechanisms, resistance, transference, and countertransference (Corey, 2016).
In the context of group counseling for adolescents at school the concepts of ego-defense and resistance should be considered. Ego-defense mechanisms are the tools of psychoanalytic theorists that help to explain behavior, which, in its turn, can have a negative impact on academic performance of teenagers. As for resistance, it is defined as “the individual’s reluctance to bring into conscious awareness threatening unconscious material that has been previously repressed or denied” (Corey, 2016, p. 131). In fact, it is an attempt to protect oneself against the anxiety and fear that something unconscious can be revealed. Some of resistance manifestations that can influence education process of an adolescents, according to Wolf (as cited in Corey, 2016, p. 132), include arriving late or not showing up at all, the attitude of indifference, uncooperative behavior, and inappropriate or impulsive behavior. On the whole, group counseling is expected to reveal and address these manifestations as well as reduce their negative impact on academic performance.
Another theoretical foundation of group counseling in a school setting is the approach suggested by Alfred Adler. This psychiatrist claimed that neurosis was “the result of a person’s retreat from the required tasks in life with the symptoms serving a safeguarding function to protect the individual from perceived failure in a life task” (Corey, 2016, p. 165). Thus, he treated depression as avoidance of some event or problem by a person such as a challenge a work or school or a conflict in relationships with family or friends. Also, this theoretical framework was used in contemporary therapeutic practice as a whole and in group context in particular because Adler treated humans as social beings. Some of the key concepts of Adler’s theory are community feeling and social interest (Corey, 2016). The issue is that social connectedness is important for success and happiness of an individual while isolation has an opposite effect. Therefore, in educational context, belonging to a minority resulting in the lack of social connectedness can result in a less successful performance. Another benefit of Adler’s approach is focus on family that has a significant impact of the personality’s development.
It can be concluded that a successful group counseling process can be grounded on a mixture of theories. Thus, to address the needs of Spanish adolescents and improve their academic outcomes, both psychoanalysis and Adler’s theories are applicable. They provide an opportunity to reveal the existing problems, discover their causes, and develop interventions able to mitigate their negative impact on academic performance of adolescents. Moreover, both theories have high potential for application in conditions of group counseling.
Dynamics of Group Process and Group Development
Group counseling, while effective in many ways, is frequently more difficult to organize. Moreover, the therapy outcome is usually less predictable than that of individual counseling (Berg, Landreth, & Fall, 2018). Thus, group progress and group development should be in the focus of a counselor to foresee the aspects to address and make group counseling more effective. Then group progress usually comprises four stages while there can be more or less depending on a counselor and the goals of a group. For the suggested group counseling intervention, such stages as initial, transition, working, and final can be suggested.
The initial stage presupposes organizational issues and getting acquainted to the group members. It is important to explain the rules of the group but considering the age of participants, it can be more productive to develop the rules specific for a group. Considering the fact that students with poor performance frequently have behavioral problems, a set of rules is a necessity. Nevertheless, it should not be done authoritatively. Cooperative approach should prevail in group counseling. To get acquainted, students can present themselves in brief without mentioning the problem that needs to be resolved. The major goal of the initial stage is to establish a good therapeutic relationship that will allow further cooperation, collaboration, egalitarianism, and mutual respect (Corey, 2016). These issues follow the Adlerian therapeutic model, which focuses on socially-equal relationships and creation of democratic atmosphere.
The transition stage implies analysis and assessment of the group members. It consists of two major aspects such as understanding current problems and behaviors and the way they influence the student’s performance and academic outcomes. The focus of this stage is an individual within his or her social context. The counselor or the leader studies the group members and their existence in social situations in addition to information provided by their teachers. The number of assessment techniques is not limited. For example, a counselor can examine family conditions of students, relationship difficulties, early childhood memories, and students’ artwork. The complex of these assessments is expected to provide a counselor with a comprehensive picture regarding goals, purposes, and lifestyle of every group member.
The working stage of group counseling will be significantly influenced by the peculiarities of the group and its goals. Since the group consists of students with poor academic outcomes, the major aim is to remove factors leading to this result or at least minimize their negative impact. The working stage comprises diverse tasks that are planned depending on the type of problems its members have. For example, it is possible to use a progress chart for every student to trace the achievement of the final goal, presentation of goals and achievement plans in the group, provide mini-lessons on study skills, general organization of learning, develop good work habits, playing games that are both educational and entertaining, etc.
The final stage implies assessment of the group efficiency and check of results’ implementation during education process. The major indicator of group work success is the improvement of students’ academic outcomes that can be measured by a teacher. Also, behavioral changes can be evaluated to check the impact of group counseling on students’ self-perception and their position in a class, which is crucial for adolescents.
Group dynamics has many important concepts to consider that a counselor should be able to address. Some of them are trust of students, goals and their achievement, resistance, fears, and self-disclosure. Thus, trust is a core concept to be considered by a counselor. It is vital for relationships between a counselor and group members because it allows students to share their worries and fears as well as to believe that the ideas suggested by a counselor can be useful. Consequently, it is the task of a counselor to create the atmosphere of safety in a group and apply the activities that can reduce anxiety. Goals are also critical for counseling of a group with poor academic outcomes. The golden rule for goal-setting is to make them achievable.
In case a goal is difficult to reach, students are likely to lose motivation. Another aspect of goal-setting is a step-by-step planning, which provides a clear picture of the way to one’s purpose. Moreover, it allows students to tick off the stages that are achieved and thus trace the progress, which adds motivation. Resistance is inevitable in every counseling procedure. However, group counseling involves resistance from different individuals at diverse stages of group work, which is more difficult to predict and address. It is a kind of resistance to change and demands individual approach. Fears are also frequent in the process of group counseling on the whole and in adolescent groups in particular. The major fear is that of failure and the counselor has to apply encouragement techniques to reduce fears. Finally, self-disclosure is a necessary component of group counseling because the ability to disclose one’s problem is a key to its acceptance and solution.
Ethical Dilemmas and Application of Ethical Standards
Group counseling inevitably involves ethical and professional issues related to both personal relationship within a group and the general organization of counseling. Working with a group, a counselor faces some ethical dilemmas and the necessity to apply the existing ethical standards. One of the major documents that provided ethical standards for counselors is the Code of Ethics developed by the American Counseling Association (ACA) (2014). It is designed to follow the mission of ACA, which is “to enhance the quality of life in society by promoting the development of professional counselors, advancing the counseling profession, and using the profession and practice of counseling to promote respect for human dignity and diversity” (American Counseling Association, 2014). In case of the counseling intervention for a group of Spanish adolescent students, ethical dilemmas related to confidentiality, informed consent, and cooperation with other professionals can appear.
The issue of confidentiality and privacy is crucial for group counseling due to the number of people involved in the sessions. Still, counselors are aware that trust is a cornerstone of counseling relationships and are eager to create “an ongoing partnership, establishing and upholding appropriate boundaries, and maintaining confidentiality” (American Counseling Association, 2014, p. 6). The dilemma can arise in case a counselor learns some information not directly related to the process of counseling and faces the choice to share the facts with other people who can be affected or preserve confidentiality and privacy. First of all, it should be considered that adolescents are very sensitive to respect for their privacy. Hence, actions of a counselor should be guided by the Code of Ethics and disclose private information only with appropriate consent of a client or with sound legal or ethical justification, for example, in case not disclosing is dangerous to one or more of individuals (American Counseling Association, 2014). Moreover, the ACA Code of Ethics provides peculiar recommendations for group work. Thus, the counselors are expected to clearly explain the significance of confidentiality to a group.
The issue of informed consent, while included in the section about confidentiality and privacy, needs a separate consideration because it involves an ethical dilemma as well. In case of group counseling at schools, minor clients are involved. Consequently, they lack the capacity to give voluntary informed consent. In this situation, counselors are expected to inform parents or legal guardians about the goals of counseling sessions that the minors will participate and about the confidential character of counseling relationship according to the “current legal and custodial arrangements” (American Counseling Association, 2014, p. 7). According to the ACA Code of Ethics (2014), counselors are expected to consider cultural diversity of families and treat the inherent rights and responsibilities of parents or guardians in all issues involving the welfare of their children with respect as long as they are within the legal norms. Counselors organize their work in order to achieve collaborative relationships with parents and guardians of their minor clients for the best outcomes of counseling interventions.
Cooperation and relationships with other professionals are significant in the work of a counselor. In fact, the quality of interventions and their outcomes depend on the quality and efficiency of relationship between a counselor and other professionals. Therefore, there is a need for creating positive working relationships and environment to improve the quality of service provided for clients (American Counseling Association, 2014). In case of group counseling for adolescent students in the school setting, teachers are the professionals who cooperate with counselors most of the time. Still, an ethical dilemma can appear when teachers begin interfering within the counseling process or a counselor wants to participate in the learning process more that he or she is supposed to be. Here the principle of interdisciplinary teamwork can be applied. It presupposes the delivery of service to clients with the focus on its highest quality. Therefore, both parties can contribute to learning or counseling processes as long as it has a positive effect on the client’s well-being (American Counseling Association, 2014). Still, it is necessary to establish ethical and professional obligations to address the raising ethical concerns. Since a counselor and a teacher perform different functions, they should cooperate without excessive interference in the actions of each other. Moreover, they can consult about the approaches that can be used to achieve the best outcomes for every student involved in the counseling group.
On the whole, professional ethics of a counselor is grounded on five dimensions. They include sufficient knowledge and skill that empower competent practice, respect for human dignity and freedom, responsible use of the power typical of a role of a professional, promotion of public confidence in the profession, and focus on the clients’ welfare (Welfel, 2016). In case a counselor follows these essential dimensions in practice and demonstrate adherence to the accepted code of ethics, he or she is likely to perform efficient interventions beneficial for clients.
Approach to Group Formation
Group counseling in schools allows maximizing the impact of counseling and reaching the most troubled adolescent students (Fibkins, 2014). Although personal counseling is also effective, group work has significant benefits because it provides opportunities for addressing the needs of students with similar problems at the same time. To achieve the greatest efficiency of group counseling, it is necessary to form the groups carefully, with the consideration of students’ peculiarities. Group formation includes such important aspects as recruiting, screening, and final selection of members.
Recruiting of a counseling group begins with a choice of the prospective members. At this stage, the students are included in a list on the basis of information and achievement data provided by their teachers. Some of the recruitment criteria are failure in at least two subjects, demonstration of a desire on the part of students to improve their performance, no serious attendance problems, and no significant health-related learning problems such as dyslexia or dysgraphia. Later, groups for students with more serious learning problems can be organized, but the current group counseling intervention focuses on students who have the ability to succeed in learning but do not work at their full strength during the academic year and fail some classes. It is crucial to consider the desire of students to improve because without their personal desire, group counseling will not provide any significant result. The second step is to send the group permission slips to the potential group members. They include parental permission for participation and brief information about the goals of counseling. The students who return the document are included in the waiting list.
The first 15 students who obtain parental permission to join the group will be interviewed by a counselor as a part of screening. It is necessary to discover is a student has enough motivation to improve his or her academic performance and is ready to work in a group. Another aspect of screening that does not directly involve students is the analysis of academic outcomes for five preceding years and interviewing teachers. These procedures allow assessing student’s performance and can prompt the source of the problem that has a negative impact on their achievements. The final stage of group formation is selection of members. Based on the results of screening, a group of 5-7 members will be created. After the intervention is implemented and proved to be effective, the group size can be increased to 8-10 members.
The group counseling will have a page at the school website. Every participant will have personal secure access to the materials and get an opportunity to trace his or her progress. Also, the page will have the necessary information about the dates of meeting and useful tips on improving academic skills. Parents will also have access to the page but only to general information. Thus, security and safety of personal information will be protected, which is crucial for teenagers. If there is a technical possibility, the page will have a live chat where both students and their parents will be allowed to ask the questions or suggest the topics for future meetings. After the first sessions are finished, a report with achievements of the group counseling will be included to demonstrate the effectiveness of the suggested interventions.
Proposed Intervention and its Potential for Improving Academic Outcomes
Recent studies provide evidence of a high potential that group counseling has on academic performance. For example, research by Ozer, Demir, and Ferrari (2013) discovered a positive impact of a group treatment program on reducing academic procrastination, which is the cause of poor performance of students. Current intervention is aimed at improving academic outcomes of Spanish adolescent students through addressing the problems that prevent them from success in learning.
It can be supposed that some students have poor learning achievements due to such factors as the lack of coping strategies, significant stress, and low self-esteem. Group counseling has a potential to address these aspects and thus lead to the improvement in the students’ learning outcomes. The first two factors are closely connected because adolescents are strongly affected by stress due to inability to apply effective coping strategies. Therefore, the suggested intervention presupposes learning and practicing of effective coping strategies.
The intervention will apply emotion-focused rather that problem-focused strategies because of the peculiarities of psycho-emotional development of adolescents. For example, emotion-focused coping implies the change in emotional response to the stress such as denial or cognitive restructuring of the stressor, which allows regulation of emotional condition. Still, problem-focused coping will also be used because some individuals are more rational than emotional. In this intervention, the example of problem-focused coping is working hard and resolve the problem. Another effective coping strategy that will be taught is seeking support because adolescents are frequently afraid of sharing their problem with other people to solve it more effectively.
Group counseling has a high potential for an increase in self-esteem, which is also important. Low self-esteem is a serious obstacle on the way to academic achievements and thus has to be addressed. To increase self-esteem of adolescents, such strategies as the development of belonging and connectedness feeling, social learning and skill building, demonstration of group work perspectives, cognitive behavioral therapy, and psychoeducational group work can be applied. Current intervention will focus on cognitive behavioral exercises and development of feeling of belonging and connectedness, which is critical for performance in conditions of group work. The complex of strategies is expected to stimulate the increase of self-esteem, provide adolescent students with coping strategies, and reduce the level of stress. The intervention is likely to stimulate the improvement in academic outcomes of the counseling group members due to the reduction of the impact of factors that were causing poor results in some courses.
The effect of the intervention can be measured through comparing the results of tests in consequent quarters. The assessment needs data about students’ grades in subjects that they were failing before and after the intervention. Higher grades will witness the effectiveness of the suggested intervention. Additionally, behavioral changes can be evaluated. To analyze them, teachers, classmates, and parents should be interviewed. Both measurements will allow evaluation of the intervention effectiveness and potential to influence academic outcomes of adolescent students as a result of group counseling.
References
American Counseling Association. (2014). 2014 ACA code of ethics. Web.
Berg, R. C., Landreth, G. L., & Fall, K. A. (2018). Group counseling. Concepts and procedures (6th ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Corey, G. (2016). Theory and practice of group counseling (9th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Fibkins, W. L. (2014). The emotional growth of teen: How group counseling intervention works for schools. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield.
Ozer, B. U., Demir, A., & Ferrari, J. R. (2013). Reducing academic procrastination through a group treatment program: A pilot study. Journal of Rational-Emotive and Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, 31, 127-135.
Welfel, E. R. (2016). Ethics in counseling and psychotherapy (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.