336 The Professional Counselor | Volume 11, Issue 3 Workplace Anxiety Although mental health clinicians often experience symptoms of anxiety in the wake of a student suicide (McAdams & Foster, 2002; Sherba et al., 2019), present results suggest that a student’s death or suicide attempt does not have an impact on school counselors’ workplace anxiety. One explanation for this finding is the relationship between self-efficacy and anxiety. Overall, these school counselors had high self-efficacy scores in each of the four subscales. Previous research indicated that as self-efficacy increases, anxiety decreases (Bodenhorn & Skaggs, 2005; Gorecnzy et al., 2015; Larson et al., 1992). The death by suicide experience might not have impacted the counselors’ anxiety in this study because of their overall high self-efficacy. Another explanation is that the school counselors in this study had on average several years of experience (M = 7.05). Workplace anxiety levels decrease as school counselors spend more time on the job. Implications These results have several implications for school counselors and school counselor educators. First, school counselor educators and school counseling graduate programs should be aware of both the overall disparity of graduate-level suicide and crisis training as well as the benefits that training can provide to future school counselors. Regarding suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and suicide postvention, there are far too many untrained school counselors among the current body of school counselors. School counseling students are a vulnerable group when it comes to suicide assessment self-efficacy (Douglas & Wachter Morris, 2015), so it is imperative to support their professional development. School counseling graduate programs must increase their efforts to adequately train and prepare school counselors for suicide prevention, assessment, and intervention. Second, school counselors should prepare to face the probability of having to deal with student suicide attempts and student deaths by suicide. If school counselors do not receive this training during their graduate programs, then they must seek continuing education opportunities that address suicide prevention, crisis intervention, and suicide postvention. Suicide and crisis training increases counselor self-efficacy (Mirick et al., 2016; Wachter Morris & Barrio Minton, 2012), making appropriate preparation vital. Additionally, school counselors could consider clinical supervision as a supplemental layer of support. School counselors receive supervision at much lower rates than their clinical counterparts (Perera-Diltz & Mason, 2012) even though many school counselors desire more supervision (Cook et al., 2012). Given that school counseling–focused supervision can increase self-efficacy (Tang, 2019) and school counselors feel a lack of personal support in the aftermath of a suicide (Christianson & Everall, 2008), school counselors must seek clinical supervision. Finally, school counselor educators should consider training efforts that focus specifically on student suicide attempts. In the current study, school counselors exposed to a suicide attempt were more efficacious than school counselors not exposed to a student suicide attempt. Modeling these experiences through the use of specific role plays could help school counseling students feel more confident about their suicide assessment capabilities. Although CACREP does not require counselor education programs to provide suicide postvention training (CACREP, 2015), perhaps standards should adapt to include this important training area. Regardless, programs should also emphasize this training to best prepare school counselors. Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research Some factors limited this study. Although we had a national sample, we surveyed only current members of ASCA. It is possible that school counselors who are not members of ASCA might have responded differently. The study also had a low response rate (4.64%). Those school counselors who
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