A Study of School Counseling Services Provision to Children of Deployed Military Parents

Abstract

Considering the impact of deployment on the children of military parents as evidenced by a review of the literature, school counselors are in a unique position to assist these students during long-term or repeated deployments. The current study explores school identification procedures for the children of deployed military parents, the extent of school counselors’ use of existing external resources, types of services provided by school counselors, and perceived outcomes of interventions in place. A stratified random sample method was used in soliciting participant school counselors in the state of North Carolina. The return rate was 23.4% resulting in 117 completed surveys useful for analysis for the study. Largely, the sample included two pools – one composed of schools within a county which hosts or adjoins a military installation and one pool of schools drawn from counties which do not adjoin a military installation. Elementary, middle, and high schools were selected by 40%, 30%, and 30% rates of the total number of samples respectively within each pool of host/adjoining and non-host/non-adjoining schools. A 14-item survey instrument, the School Counseling Services Provision Questionnaire (SCSPQ), which was developed by the researcher, was used to investigate the research questions under study. A descriptive analysis, a chi-square statistical analysis, and a Holm’s Bonferroni Method for follow-up were used to analyze the collected data. Results indicated that there were statistically significant differences for the variables of “distance from nearest Active Duty military installation” and “population identification.” Implications for school counselors, counselor educators and researchers were discussed.