Group Counseling Curriculum

Small groups are an incredible opportunity for school counselors as it allows us to provide personalized intervention to multiple students at once.

School counselors provide counseling sessions in small-group settings that:

  • Help students overcome issues impeding achievement or success
  • Help students identify problems, causes, alternatives and possible consequences so they can make decisions and take appropriate action
  • Are planned, goal-focused, evidenced-based and short-termed in nature
American School Counseling Association Position

Group counseling is a vital direct service to students and is an effective part of a school counseling program. It has a positive effect on academic, career and social/emotional development and should be supported by school administration and school districts.

The Rationale

Group counseling, which involves a number of students working on shared tasks and developing supportive relationships in a group setting, is an efficient, effective and positive way of providing direct service to students with academic, career and social/emotional developmental issues and situational concerns. Group counseling has been shown to be effective in improving study skills (Kayler & Sherman, 2009), underachievement (Berger, 2018) and school adjustment (Steen, Liu, Shi, Rose, & Merino, 2018). Group counseling can help reduce social isolation and negative emotions, as well as increase positive peer relations and a sense of belonging. In group counseling, affect, cognition and behavior are emphasized. The group creates a climate of trust, caring, understanding and support that enables students to share their concerns with peers and the school counselor. Group work in schools represents an integral domain in the ASCA National Model (Erford, 2019; ASCA, 2019).

Benefits of Group Counseling
  1. Helping students realize their feelings are valid
  2. System level support where participants can lift each other up
  3. Teaching production coping skills
  4. A safety net
  5. Strength in finding your own voice in a group setting