Licensure: A Step in the Right Direction

Posted July 14, 2005
By News editor

An Opinion Piece by the Co-directors of the Risk & Prevention Program

The recent national debate on school reform has made us keenly aware of the gross and systematic disparities that exist in educational opportunity across the United States. Current policy initiatives, such as the No Child Left Behind legislation, target underperforming schools and school systems for remediation, and strive to find the right incentives to motivate large-scale systemic change. With the emphasis on high-stakes testing, we have learned a great deal about who is succeeding and failing, and which schools and school systems are meeting targeted performance standards.

Amidst the debates on how best to strengthen our educational system, there is clear consensus on what motivates the need for change: many of our country's children and adolescents are being left behind, falling out of the educational system and further into cycles of systematic disadvantage.

While large-scale systemic reform is necessary in addressing the institutional discrepancies in our children's opportunities to learn, a genuine attempt to leave no child behind requires careful attention to individual-level, smaller-scale barriers as well. Various forms of learning difficulties and differences in learning styles, social and emotional challenges, and family poverty clearly affect children's ability to succeed in school.

The facts are alarming. Moderate to severely debilitating difficulties to health and well-being challenge almost a third of all children and adolescents. Their problems include hunger, abandonment, criminality, chaotic family life, profound poverty, family violence, and learning difficulties, to name a few. In a number of situations multiple difficulties converge and often overwhelm the youngster. For example, in the United States, youth with a diagnosable mental disorder account for almost 20 percent of the population of children.These children are also more likely to be from low-income families, to be exposed to violence and losses, as well as to have social and adaptive behavioral deficits that make it difficult for them to learn. Furthermore, when distressed or struggling children bring their concerns and difficulties to school, it is hard to teach or care for the other children in those classrooms.

While the most severe cases are managed clinically, there is growing evidence that many of the ongoing difficulties experienced by at-risk students begin early in life, and have societal or behavioral origins. Many of these difficulties are preventable if attended to systematically, comprehensively, and early in the child's life. Evidence of early intervention with children in poverty and children with disabilities is quite strong, and is also a sound economic investment.

Although we understand a good deal about student-level characteristics that influence school success and failure, there is much still to be learned-and much knowledge still to be shared across disciplines and professions--about children who struggle with emotional and behavioral issues that affect education. What, for example, are the "best practices" that should be used in response to such struggles? A comprehensive response requires the inclusion of perspectives from experts in such fields as mental health, juvenile justice, public health, and social welfare. Each of these disciplines has developed persuasive ideas for preventive intervention strategies. But still lacking is real-world experience within the culture of schools and related community support systems that allow these perspectives to be put into practice. Such an undertaking requires coordinated efforts with faculty across disciplines and professional practitioners working within the day-to-day realities of our neediest schools and communities.

The Risk and Prevention Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education was initiated in the 1992-1993 academic year in direct response to the interdisciplinary call for more effective training of school- and community-based professionals for children and adolescents at risk for educational and related difficulties. The program evolved from a practicum course designed by Larsen Professor Robert Selman to train master's students in preventive interventions for low-income schools and community settings. Selman, the program's founder, is also a professor of psychology in the department of psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. His experiences in urban and special needs education, applied and developmental psychology and public health factored greatly in his original conception of the Risk and Prevention Program.

Now in its 13th year, the Risk and Prevention Program welcomes 50 to 60 students into each incoming class.To date, 584 students have graduated from the program, with many of them embarking on new or modified career paths following graduation, while others return to the sectors from which they came, such as teaching or nonprofit youth-development work. Although a good number have entered and completed doctoral programs, primarily in educational or applied psychology, others have pursued or continued careers in medicine, law, and public policy. A significant group of students has indicated interest in school or mental health counseling licensure at the master's level in order to become eligible to be hired by public school districts, early childhood programs, or mental health facilities. Until now, this pursuit has often resulted in the need to complete an additional master's program. Many of our students have been interested in acquiring professional credentials aligned with the prevention and developmental philosophy of the Risk and Prevention Program, but such credentialing opportunities are virtually nonexistent nationwide.

In response to the practical need for credential-based training, combined with the uniqueness of our multidisciplinary preventive and developmental focus, the Risk and Prevention Program has expanded its scope to offer optional second-year tracks leading to school and mental health counseling licensure. While the one-year program continues to train students in prevention practice and research, our two-year counseling sequence (Ed.M. plus Certificate of Advanced Study) allows us to prepare a new breed of licensed professionals who can support the comprehensive development of children from birth to age 18 in school and community settings. Specifically, the program offers tracks in school guidance and adjustment counseling, with the adjustment counseling track leading to eligibility for licensure as a mental health counselor.Training opportunities in early childhood within this two-year sequence also lead to eligibility for licensure in mental health counseling with an early childhood specialization. In contrast to more traditional counseling approaches that focus primarily on the highest-risk individuals and their problems or diagnoses, the Risk and Prevention counseling tracks will build upon the preventive and developmental orientation that informs the larger program.

In order to be fully responsive to the importance of credentialing professionals entering schools and communities to provide counseling services for children and adolescents, Risk and Prevention sought and received program approval from the Massachusetts Department of Education for this new licensure-based training option. This accomplishment is particularly important given that Massachusetts shares licensure reciprocity with more than 30 states, thereby allowing us to offer a training program that will be viable for HGSE students from across the country. Even for states in which reciprocity is not shared, gaining licensure eligibility in one state makes the process of attaining it in another that much easier.

Over the next five years, we propose to articulate and implement models that illustrate what might be called the full circle of innovative prevention practice in education and counseling.These models would demonstrate the process of conceptualizing, developing, implementing, and evaluating innovative multidisciplinary practices targeting the individual/group and institutional/ systemic levels. Our aim is to create innovative models for 21st century counselors and prevention specialists that will help invigorate practice nationally and, ultimately, internationally. Development of the new Risk and Prevention counseling licensure tracks has challenged us to meet the needs of our students and the constituencies they plan to serve, but the enhancement of our professional training opportunities should reap benefits above and beyond counseling licensure. We plan to use this opportunity to push forward the national and global dialogue on how best to train multidisciplinary professionals for the complex challenges they face in working with the most vulnerable children and youth in our schools and communities. If our intent truly is to leave no child behind, then we must accompany our most robust large-scale, general reform initiatives with equally effective specialized approaches for our neediest students. (Our thanks to Robert Selman who is responsible for the conceptualization and implementation of a number of these constructs, as well as his considerable contribution to the vision for the next five years.)

About the Authors

Catherine Ayoub, associate professor of education at HGSE and associate professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, and Michael Nakkula, lecturer on education at HGSE, are co-directors of the Risk and Prevention Program.