Considerations for Elementary Schools and University Collaborations: A Guide to Implementing Counseling Research

Introduction With educational funds becoming scarce through state and national sources, schools and universities share the pressure of finding new and inventive ways to enhance student learning experiences and the overall educational environment. This charge comes despite dwindling availability of time, trained staff, or accessible funds in the public school systems and university settings. It may also be seen as an opportunity to implement research studies while assisting beleaguered schools. By using the university-school collaboration model, these often isolated organizations could converge to form the mutual goals of shared responsibilities, combined resources, and joint accountability, which could possibly create a unified system designed to meet the increasing needs of school children (Palladino-Schultheiss, 2005). University-school collaboration may extend past the notion of simple shared resources in order to connect ideas, share talents, and solve problems mutually. It also provides fertile ground for counseling researchers to obtain, analyze and disseminate data. The partnership, then, may simultaneously provide benefits to the organizations and the individuals that inhabit them. This article specifically discusses the process, merits, and drawbacks of engaging in university-school collaboration with research potentials by providing readers with a template for implementation in order to establish similar projects within their counseling programs. In addition, the authors of this work include their own experiences when planning and executing such a project. Our experiences mirror the checklist (Figure 1) to show our successes as well as pratfalls. Introduction to Collaborations There are a growing number of schools reaching out to professionals in the higher education community for the purpose of establishing relationships characterized by service and research. Upon formation, these relationships can coordinate resources from the university which include benefits to a school-based treatment structure in order to address issues that are important to the individual student, the invested educational institutions, and the community at-large (Stickley, Muro, & Blanco, 2013; Walsh, Barrett, & DePaul, 2007). Many university-based counseling programs have the opportunity to offer outreach and treatment as an early intervention to school children who may not receive services otherwise. These programs may also simultaneously build learning experiences for counseling trainees in a community environment that is realistic, diverse, and cross-cultural. In this way, these agencies collaborate with similar objectives, comparable goals, and mutual advantages to create a rewarding partnership that provides effective, helpful, and well-timed services. Benefitting the Schools and Their Communities Existing vanguards for mental health interventions for children are typically school staff members; they represent the first point of contact for children and families in need despite overwhelming numbers and underwhelming resources. Unfortunately, current trends in academic environments require that school employees focus their time and efforts on closing achievement gaps. With this directive spearheading most curriculums, children with unmet needs continue to be thwarted by mental health-related barriers. In turn, their education suffers. Collaborative projects, such as what the authors are proposing, can create direct services for specific children with unmet needs in an environment that contains the essential elements of consistency, availability, and dependability. An additional benefit to challenged learners is the presence of individuals who are adjunct to the learning experience, struggling children can engage in prosocial activities that may decrease behavioral issues, foster resilience, and enhance the overall learning experience (Anderson-Butcher & Ashton, 2004; Bryan & Henry, 2012). …