Brenda McGowen, a Houston School District counselor, is part of a statewide committee that is developing online resources to help school counselors throughout Missouri strengthen their comprehensive guidance programs.
The 35-member committee, which was created in 2004, is led by Carolyn Roof, elementary guidance coordinator for the Columbia Public Schools, and by Dr. Carolyn Magnuson, retired counselor-educator at Lincoln University.
The project is funded by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and coordinated through the Missouri Center for Career Education based at the University of Central Missouri. Dr. Larae Watkins, research and curriculum coordinator at the MCCE, and Dr. Bragg Stanley, DESE’s director of guidance and placement, are leading coordination effort.
The committee has developed grade-level expectations and sample teaching units for grades K-12 in the three content areas of the comprehensive guidance program: academic, career and personal/social development. The committee is working on developing resources to assist Missouri school counselors with individual and group counseling, crisis management and consultation. Additional resources are being developed to assist them with individual career and educational planning, as well as program management and evaluation. These resources are available at the Guidance e-Learning Center: http://missouricareereducation.org/curr/cmd/guidanceplacementG/elearning/.
Complete of the committee’s work is targeted by June 2009.