Faculty take part in national conversation on school counseling

Three College of Education faculty members joined a team of 10 from across Georgia for a national White House-sponsored event focusing on school counseling.

Pam Paisley and Deryl Bailey, professors in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services, and George McMahon, assistant professor in the department, joined Yarbrah Peeples of the UGA Institute for Higher Education at the third White House Convening, "Strengthening School Counseling and College Advising." The event took place in November at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville.

As part of First Lady Michelle Obama's "Reach Higher" initiative, the convening included 475 delegates from 35 state teams from K-12, higher education, non-profit organizations, school counseling associations, as well as polity makers and researchers.

Throughout the event, participants took part in breakout sessions to discuss best practices and brainstorm ideas, received customized feedback on ways to measure program implementation and discussed approaches to plan statewide efforts that identify key metrics.

As part of the previous convening, the University of Georgia committed to hosting a conference focusing on best practices in school counseling preparation, which will take place Feb. 29-March 1 at the UGA Hotel and Conference Center in conjunction with the national Evidence-Based School Counseling Conference earlier that weekend.

Organized by the National Consortium for School Counseling and Postsecondary Success, convenings such as this aim to increase the number of underserved students who are prepared for, entering and succeeding in a postsecondary education.