Welcome to the second issue of the journal for 2017. In this issue, we again look at the mental health of students, followed by papers on career guidance and counselling in schools.
The mental health of all students is becoming more of a concern for school psychologists and counsellors. However, students at boarding schools have not been extensively studied. In the first article David Mander and Leanne Lester present a longitudinal study which compared boarding and non-boarding students’ mental health from Grade 7 to Grade 9. They found that boarding school students reported significantly higher levels of stress and anxiety over time. Limor Goldner and Mini Scharf show in the second article that resiliency and positive temperament were associated with positive qualities of memories while negative emotions were associated with poor recollection quality of self-defining memories. In the third article Jesus Datu, Mantak Yuen and Gaowei Chen provide a literature review of determination and perseverance in academic setting (sometimes called grit) reflecting on perspectives from different cultures. In the last article on mental health in this issue Vesile Oktan examined self-harm behaviour in adolescents. The research found that body image and self-esteem were predictive of self-harm behaviour.
The next section contains two articles on career guidance. In the first paper Natal'ya Galliott looks at the provision of online career information and guidance and found the majority of students were unaware of these services for them. The second article is by Raymond Lynch who reviews interest development and vocational guidance. He challenges school psychologists/counsellors to explore the potential of interest development and not necessarily assessment services and the use of interest inventories.
The last section is papers on counselling. Kai Shen Chen and Jin Kuan Kok explore why Malaysian Chinese school students do not seek school counselling. Hatice Odaci and Cigdem Celik tested the effect of a reality therapy based group counselling program on college students’ problematic internet use and found that the program significantly reduced their internet use and increased their life satisfaction levels. The final paper is by Matt O'Connor and Joseph Coyne who present data on an Australian P-12 school's counselling service.
We have only one paper in the practitioner's section for this issue. I'm hoping however, that some presenters at the national conference held in Melbourne in October will offer their presentations for this section in 2018.
Please also consider joining the International Society for Policy and Evaluation in School-Based Counseling; the invitation is at the end of the journal.
