The School Counselor and Student Mental Health

ASCA Position

School counselors recognize and respond to the need for mental health services that support the positive mental health development of each and every student. They collaborate with education partners, such as families, staff, administrators, decision-makers and any other school or community organizations/individuals, to raise awareness of mental health resources in an effort to ensure students receive comprehensive support both in and out of school.

The Rationale

Students’ unmet mental health needs can be a significant obstacle to student academic, career and social/emotional development and even compromise individual and school safety. Mental health challenges affect one in five children and youth, yet they often go unmet, with only 25% receiving the support they need (Klassen, Stewart, Lapshina, 2021). School-based mental health services, as opposed to community-based supports, are accessed more equitably across racial and ethnic groups, highlighting the essential role of school counselors (Larsen et al., 2017). School counselors collaborate with education partners to create strategies to address social determinants of health, which requires school counselors to be knowledgeable and prepared to address systemic and structural injustices influencing students’ current and future well-being (Johnson & Brookover, 2021). In addition, the full impact of COVID-19 may take decades to understand, but schools can respond to these societal changes by enhancing support services – starting with school counselors (Mitchell, 2021). 
 
School-based mental health and behavioral services play a crucial preventive role. According to the Adolescent Behavior and Experiences Survey, nearly half of all students felt persistently sad or hopeless (CDC, 2022). Research shows that policies and programs targeting childhood mental health can improve long-term well-being and may prevent the development of mental health disorders (Bitsko et al., 2019). Without early intervention for students showing warning signs, setbacks in academic, career and social/emotional development may persist into later school years and adulthood. Adolescents are most likely to seek support first from friends for mild emotional and behavioral concerns, highlighting the critical need for youth-focused stigma reduction and basic skills in recognizing and responding to signs of distress (van den Toren et al., 2019).
 
The ASCA Student Standards: Mindsets & Behaviors for Student Success (ASCA, 2025) identify and prioritize the specific knowledge, attitudes and skills students demonstrate as a result of a school counseling program. School counselors use the standards to assess student growth and development, guide the development of strategies and activities and create a program that helps students achieve their highest potential. These strategies include providing educational opportunities to enhance mental health awareness, short-term counseling interventions to promote wellness and efforts to remove barriers to success.

The School Counselor's Role

School counselors design and implement school counseling programs that promote academic, career and social/emotional success for each and every student. School counselors do not diagnose but recognize how a student’s diagnosis and environment can potentially affect the student’s access, participation and ability to achieve academic, postsecondary and social/emotional success (ASCA, 2022).   
 
School counselors acknowledge they may be the only counseling professional available to students and their families, particularly in rural areas. Even though some school counselors may have additional licensure to provide long-term counseling or therapy, such as the licensed professional counselor, it is inappropriate for the school counselor to provide those services, including providing individual, IEP-mandated counseling. School counselors provide culturally responsive counseling to students in a brief context and support students and families/guardians in obtaining outside services if students need long-term clinical/ mental health counseling (ASCA, 2022).  
 
Therefore, school counselors:

• Deliver instruction based on the ASCA Student Standards that enhances awareness of mental health, promotes positive mental health and well-being, and seeks to remove the stigma associated with mental health issues
• Provide students with appraisal & advisement to address academic, career and social/emotional needs
• Recognize mental health warning signs, including:
  • changes in school performance and attendance
  • mood changes, especially if coupled with existing mental health concerns
  • school avoidance
  • psychosomatic symptoms
  • increased disciplinary problems at school
  • problems at home or with the family situation (e.g., stress, trauma, divorce, substance abuse, exposure to poverty conditions, domestic violence) 
  • communication from teachers and other educational and community partners with behavioral and/or academic concerns
  • substance use
• Provide short-term counseling and crisis intervention
• Provide referrals to school and community resources that treat mental health issues (e.g., anxiety, suicidal ideation and depression) with the intent of removing barriers to learning and helping the student return to the classroom
• Provide resources and information to education partners about the mental health concerns of students, including recognition of the role environmental factors have in causing or exacerbating mental health issues
• Collaborate and coordinate with education partners and service providers (with a signed release) to meet the needs of the whole child and to ensure students and their families have access to mental health services
• Advocate for students’ access to and families’ awareness of Section 504 plans or IEP services supporting mental health needs
• recognize and address barriers to accessing mental health services and the associated stigma, including cultural beliefs and language barriers
• Adhere to appropriate and evolving guidelines regarding confidentiality, consultation and the distinction between public and private information.
• Help identify and address student mental health issues while working within the:
  • ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors
  • ASCA Professional Standards & Competencies for School Counselors
  • National, state and local laws and policies, which guide school counselors’ informed decision-making and standardizes professional practice to protect both the student and school counselor
• Seek to continually update their professional knowledge regarding student social/emotional needs, including best practices in universal screening for mental health risk
• Advocate for ethical use of valid and reliable universal screening instruments with concerns for cultural sensitivity and bias if state legislation or school board policy requires universal screening programs for mental health risk factors (ASCA, 2022)

School counselors design and implement school counseling programs that promote academic, career and social/emotional success for each and every student rather than providing long-term, therapeutic counseling. 
 

Summary

Students’ unmet mental health needs pose barriers to learning and development. School counselors provide short-term counseling and referral services to students and families as part of their comprehensive school counseling program. As a component of this program, school counselors collaborate with education partners to meet the needs of the whole child.