University-Urban School Collaboration in school counseling.

Models of effective collaboration are needed to best serve the needs of students in 21st-century schools. The Career and Education Connection program, an elementary career intervention developed for an economically challenged urban school district, is described. The article discusses theoretical frameworks and lessons learned through professional and personal experiences with (a) initiating a collaborative research-practice initiative; (b) making connections and enhancing collaborative relationships among university faculty, graduate students, and school professionals; and (c) facilitating graduate student professional development and training.

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Schools in the 21st century are facing a multitude of complex and multifactored problems (Paisley & McMahon, 2001), including poverty, violence, and poor academic achievement. The intensity of students' needs has led some to question whether school counseling programs are actually comprehensively meeting the needs of all students (Green & Keys, 2001; Whiston, 2002). Ecological (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and developmental contextual models (e.g., Lerner, 1995) have been introduced into the school counseling literature as paradigms for understanding and responding to the needs of today's youth (Whiston). These models emphasize the interaction of personal characteristics and the context in which the person lives as central to intervening in developmental contexts such as schools.

Although such paradigms provide a powerful means of conceptualizing and intervening in the lives of children, school counselors are faced with a daunting task if left to their own devices. Thus, multiple challenges point to the need for multidisciplinary collaborative efforts (Bemak, 2000; Green & Keys, 2001). Despite repeated calls for social action and collaboration (e.g., Bemak, 1998; Keys & Bemak, 1997; Paisley & McMahon, 2001), the extant literature indicates that school counselors do not participate in the extensive collaborative program development that is needed for comprehensive developmental school counseling programs in the 21st century (Green & Keys). Moreover, demands for evidence-based practices make clear the need for programmatic research to substantiate the effectiveness of school counseling programs (Green & Keys; Whiston, 2002; Whiston & Sexton, 1998).

Given the complex challenges facing 21st-century schools, school counselors can no longer function in isolation from their communities (Hobbs & Collison, 1995). Recent literature has emphasized the importance of collaborative partnerships between school counselors and various stakeholders as a necessary component of effective school counseling programs (e.g., Bemak, 2000; Fall & VanZandt, 1997; Green & Keys, 2001; Hayes, Paisley, Phelps, Pearson, & Salter, 1997; Keys, Bemak, Carpenter, & King-Sears, 1998; Paisley & McMahon, 2001; Walsh, Howard, & Buckley, 1999). Although collaborative alliances are critically important, there are no standard frameworks in school counseling to guide the design and implementation of the alliance-building processes. Models of effective collaborative practice are needed to contribute to our knowledge base and sustain school counseling's professional contribution to prevention and social justice. Interprofessional collaborative efforts have great potential to improve urban schools and communities. Professional disciplines can inform one another if researchers grounded in different schools of thought suspend their initial skepticism and become more familiar with one another's work (Ferguson, 1999).

Despite best intentions, proactive efforts often are met with challenges in terms of initiating and maintaining productive interprofessional relationships that foster collaboration and personal involvement. This article provides the theoretical backdrop for reflecting on lessons learned from developing and implementing a collaborative university-elementary school career intervention-based research program, Career and Education Connection (CEC). This program, developed for an economically challenged urban school district, introduces young students to the world of work and helps them to understand the connection between what they are learning in school and what is expected in the work world. Given the effectiveness of career interventions and their apparent value in contributing to academic achievement (e.g., Evans & Burck, 1992; Peterson, Long, & Billups, 1999), this career intervention program was initiated. A brief description of the CEC program precedes a theoretical discussion of the lessons learned through professional experiences with (a) initiating a collaborative university-school venture; (b) making connections and enhancing collaborative relationships among university faculty, graduate students, and school professionals; and (c) facilitating graduate student professional development and training.

CAREER AND EDUCATION CONNECTION

The CEC program was developed to improve elementary students' career awareness and self-awareness, educational and occupational exploration, and career planning. This project represents an intervention-based research collaborative program that responds to the need for empirically based elementary school-to-work educational initiatives. This is noteworthy because most interventions designed to keep students involved and interested in the educational process--and to help them see the connection between what they are learning in school and what will be expected of them in the outside world--are often left to secondary educators. As a result, even the most effective interventions at the secondary level may be received by a smaller or less-than-engaged audience. Thus, early intervention is essential. In response to this need, a university-school intervention-based research collaborative venture was initiated. This paradigm of integrated intervention and evaluation serves as a means of combining social action, community collaboration, and accountability. The CEC program reflects the integration of a social advocacy perspective and prevention efforts--both essential in keeping our youth in school and engaged in the educational process.

The CEC program sets out among its primary objectives to (a) enhance the academic, personal/ social, and career development of elementary school youth; (b) initiate an intervention-based research initiative that directly benefits the unmet educational needs of elementary students; and (c) establish and nurture collaborative relationships with university-school partners by providing an opportunity for university faculty, graduate students, and school district professionals to integrate an innovative model of intervention and research. Given that few elementary schools consistently provide comprehensive developmental career guidance programs as outlined by organizations such as the American School Counselor Association (ASCA, 2003; Campbell & Dahir, 1997), the National Occupational Information Coordinating Committee (NOICC, 1989), the National Career Development Association (Kobylarz & Hayslip, 1996), and state education departments, this intervention-based research initiative responds to a critical need in elementary education.

The CEC program consists of a 10-week, classroom-based school-to-work intervention for fourth-and fifth-grade students, conducted in weekly 30-minute structured group experiences. The intervention uses active and interactive approaches to student learning. Weekly group meetings include instruction, discussion, art and literacy projects, peer interaction, and experiential activities. They are cofacilitated by counseling graduate students and classroom teachers from the target schools. The content of the weekly sessions corresponds to the NOICC (1989) career development competencies in three major areas: self-knowledge, educational and occupational exploration, and career planning. The CEC curriculum corresponding to the self-knowledge competency includes three sessions related to learning style, family heritage, and good work habits. Educational and occupational exploration includes three sessions on how school learning relates to work and jobs, occupational information, and exploration. The final competency in career planning is represented in four sessions with activities associated with information gathering, choices and consequences, setting goals, planning, and barriers. A literacy-rich approach that includes reading and writing activities, and an interactive career-related computer program, supplements weekly group meetings. Weekly written homework is based on instructional content.

INITIATING A COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH-PRACTICE INITIATIVE

Collaboration has been described as a style of interaction in which participants actively involve each other in carrying out their functions (Friend & Cook, 1996). Thus, some degree of interdependency exists in interpersonal interactions and the accomplishment of tasks. Friend and Cook identified six distinguishing features of a collaborative style of interaction. These include acknowledgement that (a) collaboration is voluntary and members participate without coercion; (b) collaboration requires that all participants are valued equally, and each has an equal voice in decision making; (c) collaboration is based on mutual goals, otherwise commitment to the problem-solving process wanes and collaboration diminishes; (d) collaboration depends on shared responsibility for participation and decision making, creating an interdependency among participants and encouraging active involvement; (e) resources are shared between participants without efforts to control how these resources are used; and (f) collaborative partners share accountability for outcomes.

Initiating a collaborative research-practice program requires time, persistence, ingenuity, and perhaps a little luck. Based on recent experience initiating an elementary career intervention-based research program, three prominent tasks are described.

1. Identifying partnerships. Relationships between universities and schools take time to cultivate, therefore it is helpful to build on existing working alliances, if at all possible. Building on established university-school relationships may facilitate the initiation of new programmatic goals. In successful existing partnerships, trusting relationships likely have been established between the university and school, and both may have experience obtaining required administrative approval or support for collaborative projects. Familiarity with this process greatly facilitates the initiation of new proposals. Existing relationships between universities and schools, such as those evident in school counseling practicum or internship training sites, are potential partnerships to consider given established training and supervisory relationships. This is not meant to imply that new alliances are not worth pursuing. In fact, developing new partnerships can be an exciting and mutually beneficial experience for all involved.

The partnership that formed the CEC program was cultivated through an existing network between a university and urban public schools. A university-based Center for Urban School Collaboration previously had been established between the university and five urban public schools districts. Its mission was to bring together higher education and secondary and elementary schools to work on a focused agenda of community action to raise academic achievement. Networking within the center between faculty and urban school administrative leaders resulted in the formation of a partnership to address the career education needs of an urban elementary school and eventual development of the CEC program.

Forging alliances might be facilitated by engaging in conversations with university or school personnel about what each can offer, and how such collaborative efforts might be beneficial to the partner. The following relevant questions may be considered: What are the needs of the school? How can university faculty help? What can the faculty member and this program do for the school and the children? Why is this important? What will it cost the university and school in time and resources? For the CEC program, these conversations were initiated and facilitated by the infrastructure of the Center for Urban School Collaboration that provided a meeting place for university faculty and school leaders.

2. Integrating program development with programmatic research. Program development is best accomplished in conjunction with all collaborative partners. Ongoing consultation with school personnel during program development and final approval by all involved are imperative for success. Teachers, in particular, must have some ownership and "veto power" on programmatic activities. It is helpful to have a theoretical framework on which the project is based, together with specific developmental goals and objectives, to make these programmatic decisions (cf., Schultheiss, in press). Literature suggests that counselor educators are less effective in changing counseling practice in schools because they lack a grasp of the complexities associated with school environments. Likewise, school counselors have been challenged for rarely conducting systematic evaluation of counseling practices or integrating research findings into their practice (Hayes et al., 1997). Thus, collaborative interprofessional alliances that draw on multiple skill sets can facilitate the integration of program development with programmatic research.

Truly collaborative interprofessional initiatives present challenges and opportunities in program development. As trust develops and mutual problem solving emerges, this process proceeds most effectively. Moreover, intervention-based research can actually provide a rather creative solution to the multiple demands placed on faculty for research, training, and service activities. Integrating systematic evaluation into school-based programs allows the faculty member to both contribute a valuable service to community schools and conduct meaningful empirical research. In addition, involving graduate students in these endeavors provides a valuable training tool and serves as a model of social action.

For the CEC program, university faculty were relied on to seamlessly integrate the research component into the curriculum and instruction of students. Thus, data collection efforts needed to be tightly aligned with the curriculum and not require excessive time. The lack of an established psychometrically sound assessment tool to measure career progress in children provided an additional challenge for collecting outcome data on program effectiveness. This obstacle led to the development of the Childhood Career Development Scale, a theoretically derived instrument to assess childhood career development (Schultheiss & Stead, 2004).

3. Obtaining funding. Seeking funding can be a difficult and time-consuming endeavor. School personnel frequently lack the necessary training and skills to successfully prepare a competitive grant proposal. Universities could serve as a resource for support and training in the grant seeking process. Moreover, counselor education faculty with grant writing skills might be valuable collaborative partners in these endeavors. Another challenge in uncovering funding sources can be learning about various foundations, their goals, and purposes. Consultation with university development or grants offices can be very beneficial in this regard as well. In addition, meeting personally with foundation leaders can be an enlightening experience to assist in clarifying the mission and goals of the funding organization and the specific types of proposals it is interested in funding. For junior faculty focused on building a publication record and developing new courses, grant writing presents an added challenge as it is a time-consuming endeavor. One option for faculty is to turn the grant application into a relevant professional presentation or publication. Theoretically driven projects lend themselves well to these types of manuscripts.

Additional lessons learned in seeking funding include knowing the importance of professional and university relationships with funding sources, using language consistent with the mission and focus of each source, pursuing multiple sources, being persistent, and being creative in one's definition of support. Goods and services, and other in-kind contributions, can be just as useful as direct financial assistance. In fact, some grants require a matching contribution equal to all or a portion of the total support requested. Even if matching grants are not required, funding sources look favorably on projects that have already gained the support and approval of others. Therefore, seeking out collaborative funding partners can be an effective funding strategy. Collaborative partners to consider are publishers or vendors of needed materials. Publishers often are willing to provide an in-kind contribution or a discount in exchange for the visibility and empirical support their product will likely receive.

MAKING CONNECTIONS AND COLLABORATIVE RELATIONSHIPS

Nurturing new and established relationships with institutions, administrators, faculty, teachers, students, and graduates in training is essential for a program's success. However, this is not always a smooth process. School professionals have limited time away from students, and they typically receive little to no incentives to participate in these endeavors. Thus, the internal motivation and willingness to engage in the project will vary from those who enthusiastically embrace innovation to those who experience it as added work with little reward.

Contextual issues related to the school and community environment also can be very influential in developing working relationships. For example, the level of morale in the building, the teachers' relationships with the building administrator, the economic situation of the school and community, and other unique situations can and will emerge to influence one's ability to make meaningful personal and professional connections. The collaborative relationship between university faculty and school professionals becomes an essential vehicle or tool in the promotion of social justice efforts. Intervention-based research brings faculty out of their offices and into areas of their communities where they may not otherwise venture. As researchers, many faculty cross boundaries of race and privilege as they step into worlds where they hope they can make a difference. The relationship becomes a kind of psychological meeting place where university faculty, school professionals, and students come together. Thus, a sense of mutuality and collaboration is essential.

Multidimensional aspects of trust regarding motives, competence, dependability, and collegiality are essential for successful collaborative ventures (Ferguson, 1999; Stead & Harrington, 2000). Trust, a feeling or expectation of relative certainty regarding another's behavior, is thought to exist as social capital in the networks from which collaborative alliances arise (Ferguson). As such, trust is considered to be a factor at every stage of alliance development (Ferguson). For the CEC program, the alliance building process between the university and school personnel evolved over a period of time prior to the initiation of the program. Initial interactions concerned the school's need for counseling and consultation services from university counselor education faculty. In successive interactions, trust developed through a mutual understanding and acceptance of each collaborator's needs, motives, skills, and available resources. As a result, a mutually beneficial partnership was formed to respond to the unmet academic, personal/social, and career needs of students; the professional development and training needs of counseling graduate students; and the field's need for programmatic research to substantiate the effectiveness of school counseling programs.

This alliance building process might best be understood by considering the four trust questions introduced by Ferguson and Stoutland (1999):

1. Can I trust that my allies have motives compatible with mine, so that the alliance is likely to serve, not undermine, the interests that I represent?

2. Can I trust that nay allies are competent (or can become competent) to do their part in the alliance?

3. Can I trust that my allies have sufficient will and resources to be dependable?

4. Can I trust that my allies will be respectfully collegial?

The less confident that collaborative partners are that the answers to these four trust questions are yes, the less likely they will be to commit time and resources to the alliance. Thus, if there is too much doubt of others' motives, competence, dependability, or collegiality, the alliance may either never be successfully initiated or be destined to fail. Indeed, resistance to interdisciplinary collaboration has been a prominent topic in the literature (e.g., Bemak, 2000; Fine, 1990; Keys et al., 1998). Research has identified personal resistances in which members feel too threatened to incorporate new ideas or other individuals or groups into the decision-making process, or they have concerns that others either will not be cooperative or will devalue differences of opinion (Bemak; Fine).

Using Erikson's (1964) theory of psychosocial development and Tuckman and Jensen's (1977) model of group process, Ferguson (1999) outlined five tasks of alliance development to provide a knowledge base for alliance leadership. These tasks and associated tensions are thought to emerge in a developmental sequence. Success in earlier stages is thought to be important for continued success throughout the remaining stages; thus, difficulties successfully accomplishing the tasks of one stage could potentially affect later success. The tasks of alliance development, proposed by Ferguson and described next, include (a) Trust and Interest vs. Mistrust and Disinterest, (b) Compromise vs. Conflict or Exit, (c) Commitment vs. Ambivalence, (d) Industriousness vs. Discouragement, and (e) Transition vs. Stagnation.

In the first stage, Trust and Interest vs. Mistrust and Disinterest, trust and interest are crucial to successful attempts to mobilize and unite others in a collaborative venture. Collaborative members often come from existing networks; thus people already know each other and may or may not have some shared understanding of the issues to be addressed. During the developmental stages of the CEC collaborative program, questions emerged about who would benefit from the program and how. Could a program of intervention-based research serve the needs of both the school and the university without compromising the needs of one for those of the other? The tensions at this stage also can include those involving race, class, and disparities in power.

In the second stage, Compromise vs. Conflict or Exit, the prominent task is to reach agreement on how the collaborative will operate and what its goals will be. Tensions can emerge over power, interpretation, turf, and priorities. For the CEC program, concerns were expressed by the school that the program would interfere with academic time and student preparation for high-stakes testing. Compromises had to be reached about the timing and scheduling of the program to occur after scheduled state academic proficiency testing was completed. If conflict predominates over compromise, members may drop out of the alliance and the collaboration may fall. Thus, trust is important in this stage for resolving conflicts and compromising so that the alliance can continue to progress effectively.

In the Commitment vs. Ambivalence stage, the task is to resolve problems that interfere with participants' role commitments. Tensions that could arise during this stage concern conflicting obligations from outside the alliance or from members' abilities to perform agreed-upon tasks. Ambivalence could surface if members become less confident that they possess the necessary knowledge or resources to follow through on their commitments. Conflicting obligations, competing values, or social class identity can cause guilt, which in turn creates ambivalence that can lead to decreased involvement or disengagement from the process. In the CEC program, training needs of counseling graduate students became apparent. Relevant skills in lesson planning, classroom guidance, and classroom management were lacking, and additional training and support were required. Through the coordinated efforts of university faculty and classroom teachers, necessary skill-based training, supervision, and support were provided.

The task of the Industriousness vs. Discouragement stage is to remain industrious in the face of adversity. Although one may expect that the alliance will progress effectively if it has met with success in the previously encountered tasks, it is inevitable that potentially discouraging setbacks can occur. Collaborative relationships built on trust and a history of effective problem solving are typically better prepared to emerge successfully through these challenges. For the CEC program, scheduling was sometimes a challenge with various school field trips and events requiting flexibility in delivering the structured group experiences.

The final stage, Transition vs. Stagnation, involves terminating projects and transferring resources to alternative uses, including future projects taken on by the same collaborative group. After the first year of the CEC program, the need for the development of a student assessment measure became evident, and plans for continued collaboration to make this possible were initiated. The school also became an internship site for the university's school counseling program. The failure to make transitions such as these can result in stagnation in an established collaborative alliance. Given that a prominent objective of the collaborative alliance building process is to initiate and build long-term relationships, this could present an obstacle in the process.

FACILITATING GRADUATE STUDENT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING

Literature suggests that school counselors not engaging in collaboration (Paisley & McMahon, 2001) lack the necessary training, experience, and support. To counter this, faculty need to effectively integrate innovative models of teaching, service, and research into the training of new school counselors and the professional development of established professionals (Hayes et al., 1997). It is essential for counseling graduate students to embrace the needs for collaboration, acquire the necessary skills to form effective collaborative alliances, and participate in successful models of collaborative work (Bemak, 2000). Counselor educators have been called to action to nurture students to be leaders in spearheading interdisciplinary collaboration (Bemak). University-school collaborations can provide an innovative solution to meeting the unmet educational needs of underserved students and the training needs of graduate counseling students. Practical experiences with collaborative programs in the schools provide counselors-in-training with valuable skills not easily learned in the classroom. These learning experiences contribute to positive self-efficacy and outcome expectations (Bandura, 1977), which in turn increase the probability that these students, when later independent professionals, will have the necessary skills and confidence to engage in successful collaborative ventures.

An illustrative example is provided from the CEC program. A wealth of opportunities existed in this project for graduate student professional development and training. Some of these opportunities were anticipated, some were not. Anticipated was counselor growth in areas of program development, implementation, evaluation, consultation, and the development and maintenance of a social action agenda. However, despite experience with youth and schools, what was not anticipated were the challenges and training needs associated with classroom management, classroom guidance, lesson planning, and other issues associated with working with large groups of students with varied educational, developmental, social, and emotional needs. In fact, the development of appropriate program modifications to accommodate the unique needs of special needs students is a task yet to be accomplished. Most counselor education programs more than adequately prepare school counseling graduate students to perform individual and group counseling and to experience and process empathy and attunement to others. However, classroom guidance challenges all of these skills. It was learned firsthand how empathy conflicts with classroom management, and how education and counseling meet and how they differ.

The graduate students clearly communicated many of these issues. For example, one graduate student spoke of feeling pulled in many different directions and expressed the impossibility of being empathically attuned to 26 or more children at a time. Another used a metaphor to describe her feelings regarding the incompatibility of counselor training and school-based practice: "I feel like I was taught all the rules to play one game, and was then asked to play another." Needless to say, much was learned about the new training needs for students engaged in interdisciplinary collaboration. Collaboration between counselor education faculty and the schools provides an essential social action training model that can more effectively prepare the 21st-century school counselor for the challenges that lie ahead.

Another lesson learned was how reality meets theory and one's best efforts to facilitate career development. This was illustrated by children's homework assignments. The importance of attending to the context, and the embedded and overlapping nature of career and noncareer domains of life, became clearly evident. For example, when children were asked to describe how they make important decisions, discussions of health and safety emerged, including choices related to drug use and violent behaviors. Other factors also emerged related to problematic family relationships and difficult community environments (e.g., violence, poverty, declining work opportunities), socioeconomic realities, and financial constraints. Through the words of students, the interpersonal and economic contextual realities of their everyday life were revealed. As such, ecological and developmental contextual models provide an excellent framework to conceptualize and develop effective collaborative programs.

SUMMARY

As counselor educators and school counselors explore new vistas in collaborative research-practice initiatives, opportunities for innovative social justice efforts continue to emerge and transform participants both personally and professionally. Efforts to focus attention on new models of social action and collaboration with underserved communities are rich with opportunities to make an immediate impact in the lives of many school-aged children. New paradigms of integrated theory, research, and practice encourage novel research and practice-based ventures consistent with a social advocacy perspective. Collaborative interdisciplinary interventions not only provide opportunities to be proactive in the lives of children, they also provide a valuable resource to teachers and schools and enhance the professional development of counseling graduate students by demonstrating the importance of collaboration and social action in graduate training. The theoretical frameworks provided here are offered to stimulate interest and activity in the building of collaborative alliances to respond to the complex issues facing school counseling in the 21st century.

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The author would like to thank Thomas V. Palma and Graham B. Stead for their thoughtful comments on a previous version of this article, and Katie Robinson (director, Center for Urban School Collaboration, Cleveland State University) and Maureen Berg (principal, Louisa May Alcott Elementary School) for their vision and leadership. She also thanks Alberta J. Manzi and Ameerah Draper for their participation in the collaborative career program described in this article.

Donna E. Palladino Schultheiss is an associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Administration, Supervision, and Adult Learning, Cleveland State University, OH. E-mail: [e-mail]