School-Based Mental Health Telecounseling in Elementary Schools: Potential Advantages and Challenges
Abstract
School-based mental health counseling interventions (SBMHCI) address youths' presenting problems in diverse elementary schools. Schools with Title I status face unique challenges for face-to-face therapeutic interventions due to transportation and other issues confronting many families living in poverty (Bornheimer et al., 2018). We implemented telecounseling services with youth from three Title 1 elementary schools in response to the transition to remote learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We anticipated that the transition from face-to-face counseling to telecounseling would increase participation as telecounseling eliminates some barriers to service delivery. However, we found a 46% decrease in the number of youths participating in our SBMHCI. Our exploratory study presents results examining differences in participation and change in an SBMHCI based on counseling children with the following modalities, (a) face-to-face therapeutic services and (b) telecounseling.
Keywords: counseling children, telecounseling. school-based mental health counseling
Recommended Citation
Babb, Kathryn; Wright, Galaxina; and Lambie, Glenn
(2023)
"School-Based Mental Health Telecounseling in Elementary Schools: Potential Advantages and Challenges,"
Journal of Technology in Counselor Education and Supervision: Vol. 3:
Iss.
2, Article 1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.61888/2692-4129.1047
Available at:
https://digital.sandiego.edu/tces/vol3/iss2/1
