| Getz-Roanoke County Peer Group Clinical Supervision Program (G-PGCS) was designed and implemented for K-6 school counselors by Getz, Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech, and Kelly, Counseling and Guidance Director for Roanoke County, Virginia, School Division. G-PGCS began in the fall of 1994 and has continued to the present however, there have been no studies on the clinical supervision effects of the program. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to conduct a qualitative evaluation of G-PGCS.The evaluation participants in this evaluation included Kelly, Roanoke County (1997-98) K-5 school counselors, Roanoke County School System's Career Counseling and Guidance Coordinator, and selected elementary school principals. The sources of data for the evaluation included interviews with selected evaluation participants, Semantic Differential Scales (SDS) designed for this evaluation, the Job Satisfaction Blank (JSB Hoppock, 1935), a counselor burnout SDS (Cummings and Nall, 1983), an informal observation of a G-PGCS session, responses to an anonymous memorandum, program documents, and videotape reviews of four G-PGCS sessions. Interview guides were formulated for the interviews. The SDS was designed to measure meanings of supervision concepts and to provide conformation data on the G-PGCS counselor interviews.G-PGCS session tape reviews and informal observation found the G-PGCS counselors' clinical supervision skills to be adequate. As a result of participation in G-PGCS, the K-5 counselors interviewed reported gains in counseling skills, positive professional changes, and personal growth. JSB and burnout SDS means of the G-PGCS counselors indicated that they have a high job satisfaction and low counselor burnout levels.The counselors identified the strengths of G-PGCS to be increased peer support and self-awareness, learning new counseling techniques and skills, G-PGCS supervision feedback, and a greater sense of professionalism. In addition, the counselors cited G-PGCS administrative support, training, and structure as strengths.In the counselor interviews and anonymous responses, three general weaknesses or barriers of G-PGCS were reported. Group membership and/or dynamics were cited as a weakness because some of the counselors wanted to change group membership periodically, and at least one of the groups were not able to handle a group dynamics issue. The other two weaknesses or barriers were the lack of adequate time for clinical supervision and occasional time pressure to tape a counseling session for supervision. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
