Counseling Program – Site Supervisor Survey – Spring 2013
Please provide your current job position or title: Director: 23 Supervisor: 7 School Counselor: 10 Miscellaneous (Dean of Student, Administrator, etc.): 6 Which best describes your current work setting? Clinical Mental Health/Addictions: 18 College Counseling: 5 School Counseling (K‐12): 13 Student Affairs/Higher Education: 17 Since January of 2009, approximately how many YSU counseling program practicum and/or internship students have you supervised? Twenty‐Five: 1 Eight – Ten: 3 Four – Six: 8 Two – Three: 11 One: 14 Based upon your experience with YSU counseling students, how would you rate our program’s practicum/internship students’ PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE base in the following subject areas? Please indicate N.A. for those that do not apply. (1=poor, 2=below average, 3=average, 4=above average, 5=excellent) Counseling Skills and Techniques: 4.4 Clinical Counseling Theories and Models: 4.1 School Counseling Theories and Models: 4.3 Student Affairs/Higher Education Theories and Models: 3.9 Group Counseling Theories: 3.9 Research Methods and Program Evaluation: 3.9 Ethical and Legal Issues: 4.2 Appraisal and Assessment: 3.8 Multicultural Counseling Theories: 4.0 Career Development Theories: 4.0 Diagnosing and Treating Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: 4.1 Normal Human Growth and Development as related to clients/students: 4.1Based upon your experience with YSU counseling students, how would you rate our program’s practicum/internship students’ SKILLS in the following subject areas? Please indicate N.A. for those that do not apply. (1=poor, 2=below average, 3=average, 4=above average, 5=excellent) Demonstration of foundational counseling skills: 4.3 Ability to apply clinical counseling theories: 4.1 Ability to apply school counseling theories: 4.5 Ability to apply student affairs theories: 4.1 Ability to apply group counseling theories: 4.0 Ability to apply research methods / program evaluation to practice: 3.8 Applying ethical and legal decision‐making skills in practice: 4.2 Use of appraisal and assessment techniques: 3.9 Ability to counsel diverse cultural groups and populations: 4.2 Skill in applying career development theories: 4.2 Diagnosing and treating emotional and behavioral disorders: 4.0 Skill in conceptualizing normal human growth and development: 4.2 Based upon your experience with YSU counseling students, how would you rate our program’s practicum/internship students’ PROFESSIONAL ATTRIBUTES AND DISPOSITIONS in the following areas? (1=poor, 2=below average, 3=average, 4=above average, 5=excellent) Overall Competence: 4.3 Professional/ethical/legal behavior: 4.4 Responsiveness to supervision/feedback/suggestions: 4.4 Professional demeanor: 4.3 Multicultural and gender sensitivity: 4.3 Relationships with other employees: 4.3 General work attitude/enthusiasm: 4.4 Dependability/conscientiousness/responsibility: 4.4 Professional development: 4.3 What are the major strengths you notice in our graduates and interns? I accept only students who demonstrate excellent potential. The above responses are based on average performance of all students. Most that I have accepted ate excellent, but a few performed below expectations. Willingness, commitment to learning beyond school/education setting once in the workplace; creativity. Ethical decision making and professionalism.
They are knowledgeable, dependable and have a strong work ethic. Willing to accept feedback, self‐motivated, treat internship like employment. Interest in learning. They were enthusiastic and worked well with the students and staff. Enthusiastic and ready to learn, willingness to get feedback. Professional and eager to learn. Very well prepared to step into a position. Their strong counseling skills and foundation in theories. They have great clinical skills. Well‐prepared to become professional counselors; dependable; strong ethically. The counseling background. Your students are ready to begin seeing students on the very first day. Also, they understand that their primary role is to be a student‐advocate. Well prepared, easily adjust to work environment and clientele served. Eager to learn, evidences willingness to try new things, open to suggestions, very open to supervision, open to development new programming under supervision, very reliable. Willingness to learn, receptivity to supervision. Usually looking for the type of hands‐on internship that we provide. They are well prepared. They have a great knowledge base when they come into their practicum experience. Willingness to learn and strong foundation in counseling theory. Extremely well versed in legal/ethical issues, techniques and professionalism! They are typically wonderful people who work hard and are eager to learn. Maturity, taking initiative, respect, eagerness to learn. Speaking of the one we had in the past, the student lacked initiative. Struggled to complete assignments even when given multiple directives and generous timelines in order to complete them. Strong basic skills, good assessment/diagnostic skills, attuned to issues of diversity and ethics. Overall competence, enthusiasm and professionalism. Good boundaries, creating strong therapeutic relationship. Professionalism and dedication to the opportunities given. Confidence in their ability to effectively treat diverse populations in both group and individual settings. They are excited to learn and get as many experiences to expand their professional development. They are dependable and eager to get feedback and suggestions. Eager to learn and develop skills. The latter two were particularly well‐rounded and learned as much as they brought to our interaction. With the first one there were some minor issues. The YSU students appear to be extremely knowledgeable about counseling practice and theory. They are warm and genuine. My intern has been a pleasure to work with, and appears completely qualified and competent. Enthusiasm, willingness to learn and participate ‐‐ to apply skills and concepts from courses to "real life"!
Diligent, culturally sensitive, empathic, accountability. They come with excellent background information and counseling skills‐‐they are very well prepared for internships and/or employment, and can usually start seeing clients quickly in their time here. We've been very pleased with the interns we've had. Commitment, follow‐through, and enthusiasm, counseling knowledge and skills. I think your program does an excellent job preparing students for work in student affairs. They have a broad perspective of theory, familiar recent developments in higher education, and they motivated to learn more and perform well. Professional‐dependable‐great attitude‐‐conscientious‐‐responsible—caring. The professionalism and ability to be flexible are great strengths. Highly professional, prepared and excited about the counseling profession. The ability to mesh theory and practice. The majority of students have come to their placement with the requisite skills to take on diverse and challenging cases. Compared to other interns from other related fields and universities, YSU Counseling students are clearly "a cut above" others. I've only supervise two graduate assistants so far and they were very different in their strengths. Enthusiastic and eager to learn. Understand it is professional experience and value of interning. Very professional and eager to learn. YSU counseling faculty recognize that our program is continually developing and we want to make sure that we are meeting the needs of our community stakeholders. Please help us to identify (1) program/training limitations and (2) recommendations for improving our training program BASED ON CURRENT NEEDS IN YOUR UNIQUE SETTING. Your candid feedback will be most appreciated. There may be a need for more refined acceptance standards. The program is large and quality of students is quite variable. Emphasis on professional behavior, dress and demeanor beyond what the current "culture" or their generation finds acceptable. What is difficult about this question is that the response is not representative of all interns from YSU as a whole but may apply in some forms to all. Increased practice with techniques. I would recommend additional training on how to manage professionalism and office politics, it is a difficult area for any work force. The additional support would be helpful for them. Some students demonstrate difficulty understanding the treatment planning process and general documentation skills. I think this is hard to teach, however, and is something that they generally pick up once they start to work with clients. Evening classes limit the student’s ability to complete practicum/intern hours after 5:00 pm. More emphasis on actual practice of counseling techniques. Classes are in the evenings so at times it is difficult to have an intern here in the evening in programming because they are in class. More training in special education law/requirements of counselors.
The school counseling could use to teach more about many of the forms such as IEPs & even transcript reading. Despite not being counselor focused, they are a very strong real part of our job. The interns who do not have a teaching background need to understand the importance of working with the teaching staff in a non‐threatening way. They need to advocate for students while building good relationships with the staff. They also need to understand the non‐ counseling aspects of the job and learn to balance the two. I think there needs to be more focus on learning 1‐2 counseling theories well, knowing specific techniques and being able to apply them well, often times students learn tidbits of one theory and few techniques and think their competent, this was the same issue when I went through the program, For example, I operated the same way when I graduated in 85, luckily I was mentored by a psychologist, and he said you are all over the counseling map, many of us called ourselves eclectic. I went a got certified in CBT and know the theoretical framework well and can apply the theory, and identify distortions and restructuring. Oftentimes, people go to one workshop on DBT and believe they have the skill to practice. Additionally, their supervisor may not know about DBT. Risk assessment training could be enhanced and chemical dependency education should be mandated, if not already. Limitation: preparing students for real world counseling in real world settings with really dysfunctional families as opposed to the "ideal" or “textbook" client/case. o Recommendation 1: Utilization of scenarios/role playing of crisis or uncomfortable events. o Recommendation 2: Additional shadowing opportunities prior to Practicum II placement. Scheduling graduate classes in the evening which limits their nighttime therapy availability. Stronger skills in career theory and techniques. I'd like to see more robust course offerings in the student affairs track. It seems like students have to take increasingly more counseling courses and less student affairs courses. Year‐long internship or extending practicum into the internship. When a supervising site makes a recommendation, it should be followed up on with the student and the supervisor. A meeting should be held prior to the start of the internship semester with all parameters and expectations CLEARLY stated, so both the student and the supervisor know what is expected of them. We've only had one intern and she was very good. Perhaps more exposure to non‐traditional settings for mental health such as corrections and forensics. The development of the CIT's theoretical knowledge base and practical skill acquisition should drill down on evidence‐based modalities (i.e. cognitive behavioral, ABA, DBT, etc.). Health care services are moving into a pay for performance structure. Accompanying this shift is an insistence by payees that treatment modalities be proven to work.
One limitation is that the Student Affairs program does not have enough Student Affairs staff teaching those classes to offer more insight into higher education. The counseling part of the program is very important; however they need more Student Affairs curriculum and background. My two recommendations would be to hire more Student Affairs staff members to teach the core curriculum and also during regular counseling courses that are shared with the school, family and clinical counseling students, allow the student affairs students to do projects that apply to what they will be doing in higher education rather than forcing them to apply it to the other counseling types. Especially when they will never obtain a counseling certificate unless they double major. At CISP we offer a unique opportunity for our students to get hands‐on experience with local and international students. We train our interns and allow them then to have total hands on experience with the responsibilities that this entails. My intern has been wonderful!! I have no recommendations for improvement at this time. I would love to see the higher education/student affairs students get a more rounded experience so that 1) they could better choose their futures and 2) know/respect how all aspects of the college/university functions. I am not sure if the feedback that I will give is "teachable" but I feel it worth mentioning. Please know that I have had an overall positive experience working with YSU graduate students. I am thankful for the opportunity to work with your students and be able to give back to this wonderful program. However, I feel that students would benefit greatly from learning professional workplace etiquette. Allow me to explain, I have experienced that YSU students bring a level of confidence that can outweigh their actual level of competence and experience in some cases. I realize that until they are on the job professionally, they don't realize the level of responsibility that they will be presented with, but having a more humble attitude or approach would go a long way with their future employers. We are a residential setting, which requires some adjustment for some of our interns, although most have adjusted well. Last semester we ran into some difficulties with students taping sessions, but our CEO worked it out with YSU. The student affairs/higher education component of the program has been weak; in particular, the program does not provide adequate perspectives on the history/functions of higher education in American society and global higher education issues. Hopefully, the recent addition of new faculty with stronger student affairs backgrounds will provide improvement in this area. Emphasis on counselor's equality to teaching staff (not superior)‐‐emphasis on service to classroom teachers. School Counselors' roles vary depending on grade level and district they are working with. Some skills that would be useful would include knowledge of scheduling student coursework and special education laws. We have always valued YSU interns and currently are providing a placement for one student. We believe we offer students a comprehensive experience and would appreciate being kept in mind for future placements.
Applying theory to practice is of key importance in the higher education setting. I would recommend incorporating projects, case studies, etc. into every class taught. Learning a theory is one thing, applying theory is the key to success in Student Affairs in my opinion. Earlier meetings with Program faculty or even training with other supervisors prior to practicum/internship supervision. How would you rate our graduates/interns in comparison to other graduates/interns in similar programs? Similar. Excellent overall; I have interviewed some that were not representative of what I generally have experienced. They are excellent! Considerably above average in all areas. Average. Above average! Pretty comparable. Far above average. The comprehensive nature of their knowledge is great. The forte is the tremendous skill in counseling and being grounded. We have hired several YSU interns/YSU graduates as employees‐they have been very high caliber. The YSU interns are better prepared than any other interns that I have worked with. I really do not have a way to measure since all my experiences have been with YSU, I am very pleased with what I have experienced with YSU students. I think the program has made great strides since I graduated in 1985, very pleased. More prepared, with a more realistic appraisal of what to expect in a community MH setting. They are more knowledgeable. They rate above or equal to others in similar programs! While ours lack some of the coursework that others may get in Student Affairs, they more than make up for that with the quality and richness of what they have learned in their practicum and internships. Committed to community, enthusiasm about YSU, maturity. We have only had one intern, so it is unfair of us to evaluate your program on just one student. Again, we've only had one YSU intern and she was very strong compared to interns we've had from other programs. Difficult to answer as I’ve only had one intern from YSU. High, this was my first experience with a YSU graduate student and it was very positive. On par Above Average
10!!! On a scale of 1 ‐ 10...I have not worked with more qualified interns from any other university. Outstanding. My YSU intern appears to be substantially more prepared for the counseling field than my interns from other programs. She is more knowledgeable and more driven. She self‐initiates tasks and understands the importance of continuing to learn and improve. I've had no opportunity to compare. Very good. They are much better prepared for clinical work than students we've had from other similar disciplines. We have not recently had counseling students from other programs. As individuals with maturity and dependability, very highly. As far as preparation in higher education, below average. I always describe your program as a top‐notch program. Above average! I have not worked with any other interns. I have only supervised YSU students so I am unable to make a comparison Extremely well prepared. Clearly, our experience has been that YSU Counseling interns are superior. They are better prepared and always become valuable assets. By contrast, Social Work interns are poorly prepared for clinical work. No experience with other programs. Hands down loved working with YSU vs. other area higher education programs. Above average. Please rate the overall quality of Youngstown State University Counseling Program practicum and internship students on a scale of 1‐10 (10=excellent and 1=poor). Ten: 16 Nine: 19 Eight: 9 Seven: 2 Three: 1
