Development of a Taxonomy of Policy Levers to Promote High Quality School-Based Counseling

There is a lack of an established framework or taxonomy in the academic literature to systematically analyze school counseling policies. This study was conducted to fill in this gap. Specifically, the researchers propose an initial taxonomy developed based on review of relevant school counseling policy documents and research. The proposed taxonomy has 21 policy levers grouped under seven policy foci covering school counselors’ initial competence, continuing competence, effective school counseling practices, planning and evaluation of school counseling, distinct school counselor roles, hiring of school counselors, and the continual improvement of school counseling system. The Taxonomy is still in a developmental stage with a focus on improving its comprehensiveness through studies that identify additional policy levers from different countries. The authors also invite other academics and practitioners to conduct case studies using the taxonomy that will provide important knowledge to further improve the taxonomy