Establishing a SUCCESS-ful School Counseling Program through University-Community Collaboration

This article describes four main "keys to success" in implementing a comprehensive school-based "life coaching" counseling program for at-risk students at diverse Los Angeles area schools, based upon seven years of the author's direction of the program. Specific techniques that work to create and sustain a family-school-community partnership are highlighted. The "keys to success" emphasize three main goals critical to a school-based counseling program: (a) counselor training in clinical communication microskills and brief counseling methods, (b) ongoing clinical needs assessment and program evaluation, and (c) a six-step goal-setting process that mimics the stages of the clinical interview process. Counseling programs must also retain flexibility of goal implementation based on individual client progress.