School guidance counselors are beneficial in assisting with individual student planning. The counselor will first meet with the student for an evaluation. He then creates a comprehensive written plan with goals and objectives specific to the student's academic needs. A counselor will also assist students with educational plans for the future including post-secondary educational opportunities and educational routes for careers the student finds interesting.
In some cases, a junior high school guidance counselor must assist with responsive services, or intervention or prevention activities, designed to address a student's needs, both immediate and future. These needs can arise due to certain conditions in the student's home or school life. When these needs arise, the counselor is available for educating students with a psychological disability, offering group or individual counseling, overseeing an intervention for a student, assisting with peer-helping programs and consulting with parents and educators.
An important duty of a guidance counselor is to evaluate the success of the school counseling program. Part of the evaluation includes tracking the immediate, intermediate and long-term effectiveness of the program. After gathering the information, she will analyze the data and generate a report on the results of the study. These results are useful for determining the future actions of the department necessary to improve students' overall results.
Another role of guidance counselors is to provide support to the school counseling department, by committing to the professional development of the department as a whole. Most counselors are typically involved in many professional organizations that promote the supervision, consultation, collaboration and support of school counseling programs on a local, national and state level. The counselors are also required to be proactive and continue their own personal professional development.