What Is A Masters In Educational Or School Counseling Program?

Video Transcript

Host Question: What is a master’s in educational or school counseling?

Guest Answer: So a master’s in education or school counseling is directly preparing a counselor to work within usually k-12, but could be college campuses as well. And that degree is going to have a little more focus on child development, special education, perhaps some laws that come into play with counseling within the school setting and usually also is being directly correlated to a licensure in school counseling, which does vary state by state. And for that degree, program counselors are usually doing their practicum or clinical placement within a school setting. The jobs that you can get after earning a master’s degree in school or educational counseling tend to be as a school counselor, right in k-12 public, private, charter settings, you could also do not direct clinical counseling, but become like a caseworker, for example, at school that has a special team that works with like dropout prevention or youth that have been gang involved or pregnant in parenting teens, like almost some of the higher risk student populations as a caseworker within a school setting. But usually that degree is kind of directly correlating to working within a school setting.

Guest Answer: So a master’s in school counseling would give you the qualifications to be licensed to work in a school. It’s dependent upon the state, but usually you are qualified to get licensed with a master’s degree, to work in a public or even private k-12 setting. And in that role, you would be working with students and also teachers and families or households that the students live with. And you work on a variety of things. There is guided counseling where you teach entire classrooms on various skills like social emotional learning, the friendship, building skills, anti-bullying programs, positive behavior and interventions. You also work a lot with post-high school planning at the high school level where you do career exploration and help students figure out their next path in life after high school, whether it’s college or trade, school or jobs. And then there’s also the mental health aspect. School counselors are prepared to be the mental health counselors for students. So we’re providing one on one counseling, running group sessions with, whether it’s social skills groups or a girl empowerment group. So there’s a lot of variety in the role of a school counselor.