Direct Services

Intervention
Toolbox
 ● The American School Counseling
Association provides guidelines on
how to create and maintain an
effective school counseling
program. By following these
guidelines, students are provided

ASCA with meaningful and evidence

based support to positively impact
their overall well-being. Direct
services are the individual and
group support that counselors
provide to students. This toolbox
will showcase different
interventions in the area of
academics, career, and social
emotional.
 Academic Intervention
Intervention: The Counseling Liaison Model of Academic Advising

Target Population: High School Students

Alignment with ASCA: BSS-6.A. “Partner with others to advocate for student achievement and educational
equity and opportunities” (ASCA, 2019).

Description of the Intervention Tool: The Counseling Liaison Model of Academic Advising is the building of
rapport between the counselor, student, and teacher. “Much of the time, a student’s presenting problem is
academic in nature, yet it gradually reveals itself to be a personal issue that is affecting academic success”
(Kadar, 2001). With this model, it is the counselor’s responsibility to discuss academic needs and build a
positive relationship with the students who may be in need of academic support. With this model in place,
the counselor can help communicate and advocate for the students needs.

Assessment: The assessment to measure effectiveness of this model may be student/teacher feedback
and student academic progress.
 Academic Intervention
Intervention: Individual/Small Group Academic Support

Target Population: Elementary, Middle, and High School Students

Alignment with ASCA: BSS-1A. “Use student, school, and district data to identify achievement, attendance
and discipline issues to be addressed through instruction” (ASCA, 2019).

Description of the Intervention Tool: School counselors can support and advocate for students academic
support. School counselors support this success by, “Working to establish student opportunities for
academic remediation as needed” (ASCA, 2019). Providing in class or individual lessons on academic
skills can help to support the student’s overall learning process. Lessons can be focused on time
management, organization, study skills, and more. Successful students have successful habits and the
school counselor can provide these study lessons to students who may need academic remediation. The
Advancement Via Individual Determination (AVID) program has countless study skill resources premade for
students to use, these can be used in addition to in class lessons.

Assessment: The study skill lessons would be provided by the school counselor and can be assessed by
student achievement and academic progress monitoring.
 Career Intervention
Intervention: Education Planner

Target Population: Middle and High School Students

Alignment with ASCA: B-SS 2.B “Use assessments to help students understand their abilities, values, and
career interests” (ASCA, 2019).

Description of the Intervention Tool: EducationPlanner.org is an online tool for students to explore career
interests and assess personal skills. Not only will the quiz provide students with possible career interests,
but it also provides additional information within specific career paths. This includes training needed,
experience, paying for school, skills needed, salary range, and more. Education Planner is a great tool to
use when providing interventions because it allows for students to explore and discover on their own and
can help them to gain insight at not just the career, but the steps needed to get to those careers.

Assessment: Education Planner provides different assessments for students based on their specific
search and current career development such as an assessment on learning style and character.

http://www.educationplanner.org/students/career-planning/find-careers/career-clusters.shtml
 Career Intervention
Intervention: College and Career Fair

Target Population: High School Students

Alignment with ASCA: BSS-2.H “Connect students to workplace experiences to deepen understandings
and explore career interests” (ASCA, 2019).

Description of the Intervention Tool: Putting together an annual college and career fair can help students to
explore their interests and options, connecting with people in their desired field. Studies have shown that
students in poverty specifically face career developmental difficulties because of their lack of access,
having a college and career fair can help to limit some of those barriers (Harless and Stoltz, 2018). The
counselors can connect with local schools and businesses to provide students with exposure to new
college and careers that they may be interested in.

Assessment: This intervention is not designed with a specific assessment, but counselors can seek
student feedback to analyze the effectiveness of the fair.
 Social Emotional Intervention
Intervention: Second Step (Social emotional curriculum)

Target Population: Elementary and Middle School Students

Alignment with ASCA: BSS 1.C “Identify appropriate evidenced based curricula aligned with ASCA Student
Standards: Mindsets and Behaviors for student success” (ASCA, 2019).

Description of the Intervention Tool: Second Step is a social emotional learning curriculum design for
elementary and middle school ages. This curriculum focuses in on 5 key areas which are self-awareness,
self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making (Wallander, et al.,
2020). Using this tool allows for the counselor and staff to have age appropriate strategies according to
developmental needs. The consistent framework of an SEL curriculum can also help to positively reinforce
skills learned in the school environment.

Assessment: This curriculum uses a self-assessment. Students are able to take an assessment before and
after participating in the curriculum to measure their growth. Having younger students self-assess can be
concerning to some when looking at data points, but it can be tailored to your campus need for example,
reading questions out loud to the students.
 Social Emotional Intervention
Intervention: Changing Perspectives (Social emotional curriculum)

Target Population: Elementary, Middle, and High School Students

Alignment with ASCA: BSS-1D. “Demonstrate pedagogical skills, including culturally responsive classroom
management strategies, lesson planning and personalized instruction” (ASCA, 2019).

Description of the Intervention Tool: Changing Perspectives is another intervention tool that is a social
emotional learning curriculum specifically designed for K-12 students. This curriculum aligns with the
ASCA standards BSS-1D because it allows for modifications to fit the needs of students at your specific
campus. The curriculum provides lessons broken down by standards, a walk through of the lesson, and
materials. Included in the resources are also books, recommendations, discussion questions, and more.
Changing Perspectives focuses on teaching middle school students the skills of problems solving,
self-regulation, exploring identity, resolving conflicts, increasing motivation, and evaluating consequences
of decisions (Changing Perspectives, 2022).

Assessment: Each lesson includes a pre and post assessment that can be monitored online or on paper,
this gives students a chance to show what they have learned in specific skills.
There are countless tools that school counselors can
use to support the learning and growth of students.
The tools in this toolbox are just a few evidence
based examples that have been shown to positively
impact student outcome and overall well-being.
References