The two articles in the Applied Practices section of the current journal provide interesting contrasting views of the role of school psychologists and school counsellors. In the article ‘Lest We Forget’, the negative ramifications of budgetary constraints on the services of Guidance Counsellors (as they are known in Ireland) are fascinating, complex and timely in considering similar issues that have arisen or are threatened in a number of school counselling jurisdictions. McGuckin and O'Brien also point out the potential advantages of professional associations such as the Australian Psychologists and Counsellors in Schools (APACS), which is the new name of the association that publishes this journal.
The second article by Davis, Sheldon, and Colmar is a pilot study exploring the effectiveness of embedding working memory strategies within a primary school classroom in Sydney, NSW, in increasing academic work and engaged behaviour. Memory Mates is a set of research based, easily adopted approaches that children can utilise to better manage their attention and learning, with a focus on working memory skills. School counsellors are well placed to implement such work, with evaluation, in their own schools.
I am delighted with the response to date in papers being submitted and would welcome many more. To remind colleagues, Applied Practices’ requirements are noted below. In this section of the journal, articles need to have an applied focus, with scope for colleagues to offer papers such as:
• small-scale evaluations of practice, where the findings are interesting and noted as preliminary and worthy of further exploration, even if these are not methodologically at the standard required for contributions to the main journal (e.g., no control group);
• conceptual or research literature reviews with implications for practice, with a specific reflective argument addressing practice, possibly-provocatively;
• linked case studies in therapeutic, learning, and behaviour areas of intervention integrated around a common theme.
Sources might include reports from presentations, work in progress where preliminary data is reported allowing the author to submit full findings later, and adapted students’ assignments. Papers are refereed.
Review guidelines include the following:
1. The article is of interest and relevance to members.
2. It is well written, properly referenced using APA 6th edition guidelines, and is grammatical.
3. It has a literature base, albeit small, supporting the work's findings and/or thinking.
4. It is approximately 3000 words.
5. It may contain a 120, word abstract.
6. It has a clearly articulated argument and looks to future directions etc.; thus, the work is beyond simple description, and needs to be analytical in its approach.
