ABSTRACT
School counselors in Illinois have long struggled to define their roles as mental health professionals working in the schools. This phenomenon is nothing new, as noted in earlier chapters. Historically, there was little written in Illinois School Code that directly defined the role of the school counselor and the duties essential to being effective professionals. As a result, administrators were often unaware of the transformation of the school counseling profession to a more developmental and comprehensive program, the activities school counselors are asked to do often do not reflect how school counselors
are trained, especially in addressing social-emotional issues. Rather, these duties often parallel teachers’ duties. Duties such as mental health prevention programming, crisis intervention, and individual counseling or smallgroup work are not emphasized.
