328 The Professional Counselor | Volume 11, Issue 3 Wachter Morris & Barrio Minton, 2012) and lack confidence in their ability to assess students for suicide risk (Gallo, 2018; Schmidt, 2016). About 20 years ago, one third of school counselors entered the field without any formal crisis intervention coursework and nearly 60% did not feel adequately prepared to handle a school crisis event (Allen et al., 2002). Ten years later, school counselors did not fare any better, with less than a quarter of school counselors reporting that they completed a course in crisis intervention and nearly two thirds reporting that a crisis intervention course was not even offered during their master’s program (Wachter Morris & Barrio Minton, 2012). Not surprisingly, therefore, school counselors feel unprepared. In a national survey, 44% of school counselors reported being unprepared for a student suicide attempt, and 57% reported being unprepared for a student’s death by suicide (Solomonson & Killam, 2013). In another national survey, Gallo (2018) found that only 50% of school counselors thought that their training adequately prepared them to assess suicidal students, and only 59% felt prepared to recognize a student who was at risk. These results are especially troubling considering that the Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) requires school counselor education programs to provide both suicide prevention and suicide assessment training (CACREP, 2015). Exposure to Suicide and Self-Efficacy Mental health professionals often question their professional judgment following an exposure to suicide (Sherba et al., 2019; Thomyangkoon & Leenars, 2008). Consequently, it is imperative to explore school counselor self-efficacy in the aftermath of a student suicide. Self-efficacy is the degree to which individuals believe that that they can achieve self-determined goals, and individuals are more likely to be successful in achieving those goals simply by belief in their success (Bandura, 1986). Counselor self-efficacy is defined as counselors’ judgment of their ability to provide counseling to their clients (Larson et al., 1992). As counselors spend more years in practice, their self-efficacy increases (Goreczny et al., 2015; Kozina et al., 2010; Lent et al., 2003). Further, counselor education faculty have significantly higher levels of suicide assessment self-efficacy than their students (Douglas & Wachter Morris, 2015). The relationship between counselor self-efficacy and work experience is well documented, so it is imperative to control for years of counseling experience as a potential covariate when studying other factors that can affect counselor self-efficacy. Although the literature regarding school counselors’ exposure to suicide is sparse, more studies have focused on the experiences of related professions, such as clinical counselors, social workers, psychiatrists, and psychologists. In a national survey, 23% of clinical counselors experienced a client’s death by suicide at some point in their career (McAdams & Foster, 2002). In the aftermath of their clients’ deaths by suicide, those counselors reported a loss of self-esteem and an increase of intrusive thoughts. They increased referrals for hospitalization for clients at risk, gave increased attention to signs for suicide, and increased their awareness of legal liabilities in their practices. In a study of community-based mental health professionals who experienced a client death by suicide, one third considered changing careers and about 15% considered early retirement in the aftermath of the suicide (Sherba et al., 2019). Psychologists who felt responsible for the death were more likely to experience a sense of professional incompetence (Finlayson & Graetz Simmonds, 2018). Among psychiatrists, those who experienced a patient’s suicidal death were more likely in the future to suggest hospitalization for patients who showed risk signs for suicide (Greenberg & Shefler, 2014). Additionally, 20% of the psychiatrists in Thomyangkoon and Leenars’s (2008) study considered changing professions after experiencing a patient death by suicide. Given the similarities in these professions, it is reasonable to suggest that school counselors may feel more anxious about their jobs following a suicide exposure. To date, there are only three published studies that explore suicide exposures among school counselors (Christianson & Everall, 2008; Gallo et al., 2021; Stickl Haugen et al., 2021). In a qualitative
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