solved Discussion Topic #3 – Chapter 2 – The Evolution of

Discussion Topic #3 – Chapter 2 – The Evolution of the Community Counseling Model
Chapter 2 of the text presents the evolution of the community counseling model beginning with the 1910’s.
For this discussion:
Select and briefly discuss at least one important happening in the evolution of community counseling for each of four time periods. Include the 1920’s – 1930’s, 1940’s – 1950’s, 1960’s – 1970’s, and 1980’s – 1990’s
Why is it important to understand this evolutionary process as discussed on page 24?
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NICHOLE
Discussion Topic #3
1920’s – 1930’s
Counselors would slowly start to be increasingly more visible and employment in diverse settings would begin to appear in the everyday setting. These numbers would include the growing number of counselors employed as guidance counseling in public school systems, job counselors hired in various government employment agencies, personnel workers in office settings and rehabilitation counselors in health clinics and hospitals. The number of individuals used in testing and placement service providers for war veterans would increase in years to come. With these growing number of counselors working in these areas there was an accompanied early effort to promote their professional identity as well.  Thus, was development of early certification standards for guidance counselors in Boston and New York during the 1920s. Additional support for the professional development of counselors came from Harvard University, which began to offer courses for people working in the emerging field of guidance counseling in 1921. 
Dealing with the Challenges of the Great Depression
The important work that was done to expand the concept of guidance counseling in this era, the Great Depression of the 1930s challenged counselors to address the collective misery that millions of people experienced during this period of great sadness in the history of the United States. One of the practical ways that counselors addressed this challenge was brought into attention of the masses by faculty members and practitioners at the University of Minnesota. The brought forth, developed, and started to implement the “Employee Stabilization Project”, a multifaceted approach to career counseling and development in the early 1930s. This was multiservice project included career education, counseling, assessment, and advocacy services to support the mental health and well-being of individual who was adversely impacted by the Great Depression. This groundbreaking work discussed how systemic factors affect human and work force development and described the roles counselors could play in addressing these variables in a work and home setting. Such considerations expanded counselors’ thinking about the roles they could play as “social-organizational change agents”. They also complemented the community counseling model’s later emphasis on the need to implement systemic advocacy services to promote healthy development in the individuals. The emphasis Williamson and his colleagues placed on having counselors use educational strategies to promote clients’ development was another precursor to the community counseling model’s later emphasis on similar services and would later help shape what we know today as community counseling. 
1940’s – 1950’s 
At this time four historic factors contributed greatly to the evolution of the counseling profession. These factors included the impact of Carl Rogers’s counseling theory which I will be discussing in length, the new challenges counselors faced in addressing the needs of veterans returning from World War II; the effect that World War II had on changing traditional sex roles, especially as they related to women in career and or vocational roles instead of just roles in the home and major breakthroughs in the professionalization of counseling and new developments in the field. 
The Impact of Carl Rogers’s Counseling Theory
Most significantly was the breakthrough of the counseling profession was during the 1940s. The publication of Carl Rogers’s book entitled “Counseling and Psychotherapy”. This book brought forth an era of client-centered, known now as person-centered counseling that swept aside existing models of directive counseling. Rogers’s theory led many counselors to focus on the specific techniques they could use to build unconditional empathic relationships with clients that resulted in positive counseling outcomes. The main focus of this was the helping approach which would work with the client’s intrapsychic experiences. This helped increased popularity of Rogers’s counseling theory dramatically and increased the professionalization of the counseling field at that time. It is noteworthy to mention that latter developments in Rogers’s career are consistent with the evolution of the community counseling model’s emphasis on using similar advocacy services to promote healthy human development and social justice in different environmental settings. 
1960’s – 1970’s 
The 1960s and the 1970s represented times of changes in the counseling profession and the evolution of the community counseling model as a whole. These changes occurred during an era which put into question of many of our nation’s social, political, and cultural institutions and established ways of operating them. The counseling profession in the 1960s faced one of these issues which centered on clientele. It stated whether the profession should deal exclusively with the normal developmental concerns of individuals, or should it tend to the psychological problems of a smaller portion of the population? The events in the 1960s, would blur this simple issue by suddenly expanding counseling audiences to include minority groups, dissenters to the war in Vietnam, returning veterans, alienated hippie, experimenters and advocates of the new drug culture, victims’ poverty, and women who were making their presences known. Like all societal institutions, the counseling profession was being subjected to its own questioning and challenges from individuals within the field. 
Broadening the Counseling Profession’s Perspective and Effectiveness
The book explained why the counseling profession worked to broaden its perspective and effectiveness in many ways.  The broadening of counseling perspective in the 1960s and early 1970s was accomplished largely through d pressure by those in need and seeking help at the time. Many of these individuals sought help from those who proclaimed to have skills in counseling and psychotherapy. Counselors, psychiatrists, social workers, and psychologists, all were approached as potential helpers and guidance givers to those who were finding themselves in need. Groups were made in order to allow certain groups of individual to find like-minded people in fact things such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Synanon, Day- top, women’s and other self-help groups found their way into the mainstream world. Much of these groups resulted from counselors’ failure to address the certain factors that were causing underlying clients’ problems while many of the newly emerging self-help groups made important headway into dealing with such environmental conditions in a head on fashion.
1980’s – 1990’s 
The public that counselors faced in the 1980s was characterized fear and despair. These troubling times was preceding two decades which contributed to these psychological reactions. This was loosely based on millions of people who continued to face steady challenges related to changes in family structures, an increasing divorce rate, two wars, drug abuse on a rising scale, a rise in street crime, excessive political transgressions, and erosions in our economy. Moreover, the high unemployment rate, high technology forcing people out of work, an increase in school dropouts for the first time in two decades all brought forth change to one’s attention around the clock during the 1980s. The fear, and despair exhibited by many people in the general public proved to be the steppingstone for an increasingly conservative mood in our society. This broad-based conservative sentiment served as a Band-Aid of such that soothed many people’s frustration and fatigue with the changes that occurred during the 1960s and 1970s. As a result, many counselor and practitioners based their professional efforts on intrapsychic- focused, rehabilitative counseling approaches without directing much time and energy in supporting or implementing ecological, habilitative, and culturally responsive practices. 
New School Counseling Initiatives in the 1990s
Professional school counselors initiated several projects during the 1990s that rebuffed the trends associated with the professionalization of the field described earlier in this chapter. Like the multicultural counseling competency movement, these school counseling initiatives contributed to the evolution of the community counseling model in several ways. Among these initiatives is the Transformational School Counseling Initiative (TSCI). Described the initiative in the following way: The 1990s brought new concepts about the school counselor’s role. The TSCI of the Education Trust involved the development of a new era for school counseling that has advocacy at its core. The Education Trust model views school counseling as “a profession that focuses on the interactions between students and their school environment with the expressed purpose of reducing the effect of environmental and other barriers that impede student success in school. This rethinking of the central goal of the school counseling program brings with it a new set of ideas about the work school counselors do. Moreover, the model of partnerships between counselor education programs and school districts has brought many new counselors into the profession with advocacy competencies in their repertoires. 
It is impotant to to discuus and understand the evoulontury process in page 24 because, rather than viewing the community counseling theory as a new or something that hasn’t been around for very long. The framework that is relevant for a single work setting. It is important to view this helping system as being comprehensive in its perspective, application, and history. Its perspective is grounded in a broad range of human development, psychological, and multicultural counseling theories. Its application includes numerous interventions that build on people’s intrapsychic strengths and foster environmental change strategies that promote justice and support healthy human development. Its history is directly tied to the genesis and continuing development of the counseling profession. 
IVANNA ood afternoon, 
1920’s-1930’s:

Counselors slowly increasingly their visibility and employment in diverse settings. Growing number of counselors employed as guidance workers in public school systems, student personnel, workers in college and universities, job counselors in various government employment agencies, counselors in health clinics and hospitals, etc. 
Dealing with the challenges of the Great Depression, challenged counselors to address the collective misery that people experienced during this period of time.
An accomplishment that helped expand the view of counselors as professional development and systems change specialist came from the work of John Brewer in the 1930’s in a book entitled, Education as Guidance. In which described how teachers could trained to greatly extend the work that was done by guidance counselors. 

1940’s-1950’s:

One historic factor contributed greatly to the evolution of counseling was when it changed the roles women played in the workforce in society after World War II. Traditional occupational sex role began to be questioned and greater emphasis was placed on women’s personal freedom. These dynamics challenges counselors to rethink the services ty used when previously addressing the needs of female clients. 

1960’s-1970’s:

During this period of time, changes in the counseling profession and the evolution of the community counseling model happened. New theorical models gained popularity, which included behavioral counseling, reality therapy, existential therapy, person-centered counseling and psychodynamic counseling theories. Counselors started to use multifaced approaches in their work.
The passage of the community Mental Health Centers Act to expand the use of prevention and advocacy services. This legislative action was considered to be one of the most crucial laws dealing with mental health that has been enacted in the U.S.A. 

1980’s-1990’s:

During this time period, the rise of the multicultural counseling competency movement happened. Also new school counseling initiatives, which contributed to the evolution of the community counseling model in a number of ways. 

Is important to understand this evolutionary process because it makes us aware of the various factors and people who have contributed to the development of the community counseling theory over an extended period od time. Also, it is important to clarify how the roots of the community counseling framework are historically grounded in intervention strategies that have been used to address different forms of inequality, injustice and oppression. In conclusion, is needed to be knowledgeable of the people and events that contributed to the professionalization of counseling in this country.