Predictors of Student Referrals to School Counselors by School Teachers

A large percent of high school students in New Jersey aged 12 -17 can benefit from seeing their school counselor. The problem is that without teacher referrals, many students with unidentified mental health disorders may not receive the needed early intervention services. Limited research exists as to which factors may influence a teacher to refer a student to a school counselor. Framed with cognitive behavioral theoretical foundation, a cross sectional survey design study investigated how teachers\u27 perception of school counselors influence teachers\u27 willingness to refer to a school counselor, as measured by the Counselor Rating Form - Short Edition. Using a stratified cluster sampling method, 55 licensed New Jersey school teachers participated in the study. To assess the relationship between the results of the Counselor-Rating Form - Short Edition, and teacher made student referrals linear regression was used. In this study, a simple correlation between the CRF-S score and the number of referrals was found to be significant, r = .338, p = 0.012. Further, the scores on the CRF-S could be a significant predictor of making a referral, F(1, 53) = 6.825, p = 0.012, R2 = 0.114. This information could be used to infuse counselor education curriculum designed to increase teacher and school counselor conversations, and ultimately provide information to school counselors that may increase the rate of teacher-made referrals of students to school counseling for mental health services