| Due to the increased demand for school counselors to provide crisis intervention services in schools, crisis management training has become a critical issue for counselor education programs to address. This study investigated the current status of crisis management preparation in school counseling master's degree programs within the United States. The study used a stratified random sample which consisted of 200 school counseling programs. Dillman's (2000) Tailored Design Method recommendations were utilized when developing a five-contact survey method. A response rate of 64% (n = 128) was obtained. All five ACES regions were represented in the sample.; Survey results indicated that 23.4% of responding programs ( n = 30) did not provide any form of crisis management preparation for their school counseling master's degree students. Eighteen (14.1%) out of the 128 responding programs had no plans to provide this preparation in the future. CACREP-accredited programs were not significantly more likely to provide crisis management preparation than were nonCACREP-accredited programs. The most common reason indicated for not providing crisis management preparation was "No room in the curriculum" (90.0%, n = 27). Only 6.1% (n = 6) of responding programs that provide crisis management preparation require a separate course in crisis management. The majority of these programs (86.7%, n = 85) require crisis management preparation that is infused within one or more courses. "Suicide (Prevention, Assessment, and Intervention)" was the most commonly covered topic (99.0%, n = 97) and "Crisis Simulation/Drills" was the least commonly covered topic (62.2%, n = 61). The mean degree of importance rating for crisis management preparation was 4.01 and the mean degree of importance rating for school counselors' role and function in crisis management was 4.21. A Likert rating of "5" represented "Very Important" and a rating of "1" represented "Very Unimportant."; It is recommended that all school counseling master's degree programs provide crisis management preparation. CACREP and ASCA need to establish clear guidelines and more detailed standards for crisis management preparation. Furthermore, counselor education programs and national organizations should investigate ways to overcome barriers that prevent programs from providing this preparation. |
