SECTION 4: Assess

Service Assessment: An Ongoing Process

Ongoing Service assessment provides school counselors with the data necessary to determine the effectiveness of the school counseling Service. Assessment can inform Service improvement and show the impact that the school counseling Service has on students’ academic, career and social/emotional development. It is recommended that a school district develop, implement and assess a comprehensive school counseling Service that is K-12 in scope and sequence. The steps and resources in that process are outlined in the Vermont Comprehensive School Counseling Service Model which was developed based upon the ASCA National Model.

Service Assessment 

“Service evaluation data are used to measure the impact or effectiveness of a school counseling Service’s activities and to inform Service improvement and development of goals”. Questions that might be asked are:

• What is the purpose of your Service? 
• What are your desired outcomes? 
• Is your Service making a difference for students? 
• Can you prove it? How do you know? 

(Hatching Results, Trish Hatch, pg 73) 

To conduct a Service assessment, Service standards are required. The American School Counselor Association recommended standards for students are the ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors for Student Success. Service standards are acknowledged measures of comparison or the criteria used to judge the adequacy of the nature and structure of the Service as well as the degrees to which the Service is in place. 

The American School Counselor Association provides templates and tools that can be helpful for the implementation of a comprehensive school counseling Service. The ASCA School Counseling Service Assessment Tool is a recommended tool which can be found at ASCA Templates & Resources. “The primary purpose for completing and analyzing the Service assessment is to guide future actions within the school counseling Service to lead to better results for students” (ASCA National Model, pg. 88).