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Browsing by Author "Ellington, Breanna Lea"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
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    Quomodo Curantis Eget Solacio: Investigating Pandemic Era Counselor Wellness, Professional Quality of Life and COVID Stress in the United States
    Kirsch, Jennifer Lynn (Virginia Tech, 2022-11-28)
    In December 2019, a novel version of the SARS virus, called SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China. By mid-March of 2020, the United States had begun the process of the shutting down and quarantining to minimize the spread of the virus. In conjunction with a dramatic shift in professional experiences, counselors would also be exposed to greater stressors associated with COVID-19 while continuing work as shadowed "frontline" workers tending to the surge of those seeking mental health care resulting from increasing anxiety, depression, PTSD, and other mental health conditions. However, despite the emerging information regarding the professional quality of life (ProQOL) and wellness of "frontline workers" there was little evidence emanating related to how the stressors of COVID-19 were impacting counselors. Compassion fatigue (CF), burnout and secondary traumatic stress (STS) are occupational hazards threatening counselors resulting from exposure to trauma, interpersonal stress and vocational demand. These phenomena have been extensively researched among counselors and demonstrate positive relationships between counselors' experiences of stress and higher levels of negative compassion outcomes. Similarly, wellness has been empirically supported as a countermeasure to these professional threats, serving to minimize the effects of burnout, CF and STS by improving the internal resiliency of counselors while simultaneously improving experiences of compassion satisfaction (CS). However, aside from conceptual speculation and preliminary investigation into counselor coping patterns, little evidence has surfaced demonstrating what relationship exists between counselor wellness and the unique stressors related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study used quantitative methodology to analyze a cross-sectional survey of a national sample of counselors in the United States (N = 318) that assessed for counselor wellness, ProQOL and reported, COVID-19 related stress. This investigation examined how counselor wellness and ProQOL differs during a later stage of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous samples, how specific counselor demographics related to COVID-19 stress appraisal and how counselor reports of COVID-19 related stress relates to their wellness and ProQOL. Results indicate a significant difference between counselor reports of wellness and ProQOL compared to previous investigations, with a pattern of this sample producing lower wellness and CS scores and higher burnout and STS scores. Additionally, significant relationships between counselor gender and racial identities and COVID-19 related stress were found. Lastly, results indicate significant, negative relationships between reported COVID-19 stress and multiple aspects of wellness, while significant, positive relationships were found between reported COVID-19 stress and both burnout and STS. The findings of this investigation will contribute to the foundational insight into how counselor reports of COVID-19 related stress relates to their wellness and ProQOL.
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    #SOS³: A Phenomenological Study of School Counseling Supervisors' Clinical Supervision Experiences
    Shaver, Anaid Danyelle (Virginia Tech, 2022-09-20)
    School counselors support students' social-emotional, academic, and career readiness (ASCA, 2019). However, who provides support for school counselors to navigate this herculean responsibility? Supervision provides opportunities for counselors to learn, consult, and practice counseling knowledge and skills to offer the most research-informed, inclusive, and culturally responsive services to appropriately support clients' needs (Bernard and Goodyear, 2019; Ratts et al., 2015; Mitchell and Butler, 2021). With the current state of society, students' mental health and social-emotional needs are paramount, and the support needed for school counselors to assist students' holistic development is critical. The author proposes #S.O.S.³ to promote the Supervision of School Counselors to Support Students. Without counseling supervision, research warns of erosion of school counselor self-efficacy. This qualitative, phenomenological study used semi-structured interviews to investigate ten school counseling supervisors' (SCS) counseling supervision experiences. This study uncovered five superordinate themes and related subthemes regarding the supervision experiences of SCS who received and delivered clinical supervision. Implications for SCS, counselor educators, school district and state educational administrators on the needs of SCS that will inform the supervision of school counselors who provide counseling services to support students' social-emotional/mental health needs are discussed.
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    This Is How We Do It: Black Counselor Educators Preparing Counselors-in-Training to Broach Race
    Loury, Jacoby Alexander (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-28)
    Counselor educators are responsible for training counselors-in-training (CITs), equipping them with knowledge and skills to best serve racially diverse clients (CACREP, 2015). CITs may demonstrate multicultural competence by broaching race, or inviting clients to consider the extent to which race contributes to one's presenting problem (Day-Vines et al., 2017). Practicum and Internship experiences offer counselor educators the opportunity to prepare CITs to broach race through group supervision. Thus, this interpretative phenomenological analysis aimed to explore experiences of Black counselor educators in CACREP-accredited counseling programs, as their voices have historically been overlooked in scholarship (Haskins and Singh, 2015). Five GETs were revealed including: (a) Degree of Multiculturalism in Counseling Program, (b) Regular Conversations of Race, (c) Defining Broaching, (d) Centering Clients' Culture, and (e) Feeling Tension with Students as well as three divergent experiences. Overall, these findings highlight the ways in which Black counselor educators navigate the task of supporting CITs with the broaching intervention. This study illuminates what counselor education programs, counselor educators, and CACREP can do to improve what is currently being done about broaching preparation in counselor education.