Volume_5_Issue_1_Digest

8 TPC Digest themselves higher in professional expertise and perceived their work settings as supportive of EBP and educational growth reported significantly higher work engagement scores. The implications of these findings affirm the importance of organizational support of EBP and how vital it is for supervisors and consultants to nurture and sustain work engagement levels among counselors. Supervisors of mental health counselors have an important role in helping counselors understand organizational contexts and how they may influence and support their professional growth. It is important to understand one’s work context and the potential impact of organizational and professional values on one’s own professional development. Consequently, sensitizing counselors, consultants and supervisors who function across a variety of settings, including schools, hospitals and mental health agencies, to the significance of work engagement and its linkage to EBP can increase possibilities for improving counselor professional expertise. Further implications for counselors, supervisors and consultants working in mental health and school settings are discussed in the manuscript. Varda Konstam is a Professor Emerita at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Sara Tomek is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Research Assistance Center at the University of Alabama. Amy L. Cook is an Assistant Professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Esmaeil Mahdavi is a Professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Robert Gracia is an instructor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Alexander H. Bayne is a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. Correspondence can be addressed to Varda Konstam, Department of Counseling and School Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Boston, 2 Avery Street, Boston, MA 02111, vkonstam@gmail.com . In order to provide responsible counseling practice, the continued professional growth of counselors is essential. Demands have increased for counselors to implement up-to-date, data-driven evidence-based practice (EBP). Increasing demands to implement EBP have required that practitioners work in new ways and refine their existing clinical skills. Clinical experience alone is not sufficient in determining counselors’ continuing professional growth. Research has shown that experienced clinicians are only modestly more accurate in their counseling skills in comparison to those who are less experienced. Understanding the factors that contribute to counselors’ continued professional growth in expertise is crucial so that counseling supervisors and related consultants can best support their continued growth. It is important to examine how to best support counselors’ professional growth as it pertains to implementation of EBP. This study addresses a gap in the literature by focusing on understanding the relationships among work engagement, organizational support of EBP and organizational support of educational growth with respect to perceived professional expertise in practicing counselors. To our knowledge, no research to date has linked the systematic organizational implementation of EBP and organizational support of educational growth with the proposed mediating role of work engagement in relationship to counselor-perceived professional expertise. The goal of this study was to examine the relationships between perceived professional expertise, organizational support of EBP and educational growth, and work engagement among a sample of 78 mental health counselors. The participants responded to a survey that assessed four different constructs: (a) organizational support of educational growth, (b) organizational support of EBP, (c) counselor work engagement and (d) professional expertise. To examine the relationships between the aforementioned variables, we conducted a correlation matrix of the four variables (constructs) and path analysis. Findings from the path analysis indicated that high levels of work engagement improved the positive relationship between organizational support of EBP and counselor professional expertise. We also found significant positive relationships between all four variables, indicating that counselors who rated Varda Konstam, Amy Cook, Sara Tomek, Esmaeil Mahdavi, Robert Gracia, Alexander H. Bayne Read full article and references: Konstam, V., Cook, A., Tomek, S., Mahdavi, E., Gracia, R., & Bayne, A. H. (2015). Evidence-based practice, work engagement and professional expertise of counselors. The Professional Counselor , 5 , 67–80. doi:10.15241/vk.5.1.67 Evidence-Based Practice, Work Engagement and Professional Expertise of Counselors