This article was excerpted from a longer piece in Focus on Basics, Volume 6, Issue A (October 2002). You are encouraged to read the complete article online at: ncsall.gse.harvard.edu/fob/2002/coleman.html

One of the first challenges for (ABE) counselors is defining their role: "What exactly is it that I am supposed to do?" In discussions with eight counselors from around the country, this question stood out as crucial. The role of counselor differs from program to program, as my conversations revealed. "I help students with whatever problems they have that get in the way of their learning," says a counselor from a Massachusetts school system-based evening program. Another counselor, from a community college ABE program, describes her job as giving people the TABE or the BEST [placement tests] when they come in, and letting teachers know who is in which class. Yet another described her work as keeping track of students' goals and maintaining records of what goals they have accomplished. One counselor is responsible for all the aforementioned tasks: "My job as a counselor is to make sure that our program is doing all it can to make coming to class possible for each student. That takes in a lot of territory from correct placement in the first place to helping them get housing, food stamps, or a job."

Clarifying Roles
Problems arise when the role is not well articulated within a program. A program director explains: "The ideal role of the counselor is to support students, to get into the classroom and find out what the issues are, to find out why people are leaving and follow up with them, and to bring in speakers on special topics that are about supporting the students.

Unfortunately, that isn't always the way it works. In the past what has happened is the counselor does everything. In a large program like this one, with several smaller sites, the counselor had to do all the administrative work as well as all the counseling. There were so many hats for the person who was the counselor. That role is in transition now and is closer to what we had envisioned as ideal where support of the student is the focus."

Not only do counselors get confused by these myriad hats; students do, too. They aren't always sure what the counselor's main role is or what issues they should talk about with the counselor. This seems especially true for programs in which counselors are also teachers and in programs where the counselor is also doing much of the administrative work. "It's hard to balance it all being the counselor and the resource person, being the nitty gritty detail person, and being the stern follow-upper person," says a Massachusetts counselor. "It's a real mix of different kinds of skills."

Clarifying a counselor's role may be the easiest form of support a program can offer a counselor. In Massachusetts, attempts have been made to help clarify the role of counselor and to provide support for it. In the early 1990s, focus groups for counselors were formed, facilitated by the System for Adult Basic Education Support (SABES). According to Cathy Gannon, facilitator of the Central SABES counselor sharing group, these groups examined the role of counselors in programs, looked at what was initially required in the 1990 mandate for counseling to be included in programs funded by the Massachusetts Department of Education, and sought ways to support counselors in performing their jobs.

Learner Support Specialist
A 1994 report entitled "Learner Support Services: Adult Basic Education Counseling Focus Group: Final Report," recommended a change of job title from the vague term "counselor" to the more specific descriptor "learner support specialist." The report defined the purpose of counseling in adult basic education as "providing learners with support services that will assist them in successfully meeting their educational goals" and listed these tasks as part of the job:

• Participating in intake, assessment, and class placement of learners.
• Meeting with students and with classes to explain program services.
• Helping set individual goals, and listening to concerns or issues of students.
• Checking attendance and working with staff to follow up on absences.
• Meeting with teachers, staff, and students to identify problems and needs as they relate to academic performance and educational planning.
• Assessing the need for outside services, researching these services, and making appropriate referrals.
• Assisting in developing strategies to address waiting lists and/or recruitment of students.

In 2002, a group of counselors in southeastern Massachusetts, facilitated by Southeast SABES, re-visited this list. They believe that the National Reporting System requirements for follow-up on student goal attainment and measurement of educational gain that meet validity and reliability standards have led to an increased emphasis on the role of counselor in programs.

The Counseling Sharing Group of Southeast Massachusetts is also discussing and studying areas such as transitioning General Educational Development (GED) students into community college settings and increasing student retention. According to Betty Vermette, the facilitator of the group, "These were needs that came up in a survey we did last year. Many of the topics that people listed fell under the counselor role: recruitment, student retention, the intake process, goal setting, placement, transitioning to college, etc. Based on this, we initiated the Southeast Working Group for Educational Counselors." In revisiting the definition of the role of counselor, this group hopes to help counselors deal with the issue of lack of clarity.

Cathy Coleman has been teaching GED and pre-GED for 14 years. She now works as the curriculum and assessment coordinator for Central SABES in Massachusetts. She can be reached at: cathyc@qcc.mass.edu