TPC Journal V8, Issue 4- FULL ISSUE

362 The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 4 issue, then it [the student issue] would stick with the administration.” Stan’s PSCs would be involved if the student needed “more of a counseling-type component where the student needs assistance or is seeking help from . . . the school.” Sasha said she worked with students in gangs, but their gang affiliation was “not what we’re working on.” Beth agreed: “The thing is . . . if a kid is coming to you with a specific problem, you help them with that specific problem whether he’s a gang member or not.” Beth stated her actual role as a PSC limited her ability to interact because in her opinion, “if a kid was deeply entrenched in a gang, we’re not going to be able to get them out of that gang.” Derek (SL) agreed that the degree of involvement complicates the intervention because “once they reach a certain point, it is going to be very difficult—I’m not going to say impossible—but it’s going to be very difficult to get [them] back.” Because the immediate need for a student to seek a PSC’s assistance was rarely, if ever, gang-related, Beth noted her form of intervention was about helping the students obtain their diplomas. Beth went on to say, “If he is here and attempting to get an education, behaving himself and not fighting . . . then my role would be to help him get what he needs from the school system as long as he is playing by our rules.” Her view of services for gang members seemed focused primarily on academic counseling. PSCs’ Collaborative Role in Discipline Processes Jake (SL) identified collaboration as a function in the PSC’s role when working with students in gangs, although he noted that the level of collaboration would be limited by the degree of the student’s gang involvement and its impact on the school environment. Jake stated, “I don’t know that they play a role in identifying gang issues unless somebody comes to them with a situation.” Stacey, a PSC at Jake’s school, concurred with his assessment when she noted, “We don’t do a lot in identifying the gang presence . . . administration and the resource officer tend to be the ones dealing with that.” Stacey went on to say that addressing students in gangs was handled by administrators, and there was no communication with the PSCs about those students that may be involved in gangs. Communications related to students in gangs among SLs, PSCs, and teachers did not exist at Stacey’s school. She explained, “I can’t remember anyone here ever talking about making that kind of referral.” Like Stacey, Trevor (PSC) did not expect referrals related to gang membership coming to him from teachers. The PSC participants reported that those students violating school policy were referred to administrators. Most referrals for confirmed concerns related to gang members based on attire or language were directed to the administrative teams if they came to the counseling office first. As a counterpoint, Trevor’s SL, Frank, stated, “I can’t say I’ve ever met a counselor I would trust to even give me that type of information.” He went on to say, “So I’m not very trusting of that [information coming from PSCs] at this point. I don’t think they’re [PSCs] involved.” The degree of collaboration in the actual role of PSCs was mentioned frequently. There seemed to be a lack of collaboration and shortage of referrals from SLs to PSCs, especially when the student gang members had committed infractions leading to disciplinary consequences. When SLs disciplined gang members, there often was no follow-up with PSCs. The SLs in this sample seemed not to view PSCs as contributors to their disciplinary and safety maintenance functions. Because of their focus on safety and discipline issues when thinking about gang members, it seemed not to occur to the SLs that PSCs could contribute to the academic, career, personal, and social development of gang members via their traditional professional functions.