SCHOOL COUNSELOR ROLES AND FUNCTIONS

Budget cuts in education demand that school counselors learn how to do more with what is presently available, and to collaborate with families and communities to find resources that meet student needs. In an effort to address how school counselors can be proactive in finding needed resources, this article draws on information from various disciplines to explore the utility of community asset map- ping. An approach for developing and creating a com- munity asset map is presented.

S chools across the nation are being adversely

affected by the current economic crisis. For

example, California is predicting $3.9 billion

cuts to K-12 education (Rau & Halper, 2009),

Florida has cut aid to local school districts by $140

per student, and Colorado has proposed suspending

a number of educational programs and cutting K-12

funding by almost 4% (Johnson, Koulish, & Oliff,

2009). Recently, 36 states have proposed cuts in

education due to the massive effects of our current

economic climate (Johnson et al.). Additionally,

school districts are proposing to make these cuts by

reducing teaching and school counseling staff. One

school district in California, the California Pacifica

School District, is not only asking teachers to take a

voluntary 5% pay cut, it is also planning to cut the

only school counselor position in the district (Scott,

2009). Likewise the Hartford, CT, school district

announced plans to cut 10 school counseling posi-

tions. In addition to cutting counselor positions,

schools are being forced to decrease or eliminate

other services that were once available to students.

In 2008, it was projected that funding for these pro-

grams would drop from $1.08 billion to $800 mil-

lion. According to the Department of Education,

anywhere from 635,000 to 1.1 million students will

lose access to learning centers and other after-school

supervised enrichment programs (Dorgan, 2008).

Ironically, as the staff members and school pro-

gramming that were in place to deal with students’

personal and academic problems decrease, the needs

of students are both increasing and diversifying.

Poverty has continued to increase with 13.2 million

children under the age of 18 living below the feder-

al poverty level (Douglas-Hall & Chau, 2008). A

recent analysis by First Focus, a Washington-based

advocacy group for children and families, estimated

that 2.2 million foreclosures on subprime home

mortgages will affect two million children across the

nation over the next 2 years (Gewertz, 2008). As

families are evicted from their homes, the number of

identified homeless students has dramatically

increased, and there is a heightened demand for free

or reduced-price lunches (Gewertz). While 14.9

million students qualified for free lunch in 2007, an

additional 283,000 students were eligible during the

2008-2009 school year (Dillon, 2008). Across the

country, school counselors are enrolling a growing

number of homeless children as parents lose their

jobs, leases, and mortgages in what many observers

refer to as the worst economic crisis since the Great

Depression (Gewertz).

As the influx of homeless students this year

increases demand on psychological and social work

services (Gewertz, 2008), schools continue to face

the challenges of meeting the needs of students with

reduced funding, reduced staff, and a lack of organ-

ized coordination of services (University of

California, Los Angeles [UCLA], n.d.). Stresses

from economic hardships place children at higher

risk for developing emotional and behavioral prob-

lems and can negatively affect school functioning

(Anderson-Butcher & Ashton, 2004). Currently,

about one in five children are diagnosed with men-

tal, emotional, or behavioral disorders (Evans,

2009), and there is a need for schools to have

increased availability and accessibility of mental

health services (Hootman, Houck, & King, 2003).

These facts translate into evidence for the need to

look elsewhere, beyond the confines of the school,

248 A S C A | P R O F E S S I O N A L S C H O O L C O U N S E L I N G

Dana Griffin, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. E-mail: [email protected]. Amy Farris, M.Ed., is a college advisor and school counselor at the Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill in Durham, NC.

School Counselors and Collaboration: Finding Resources Through Community Asset Mapping

F E

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to find resources available to help schools address

unmet needs of their student population (UCLA,

2002). Indeed, the scope of the school counselor’s

role includes referral services. In fact, making refer-

rals is not only part of the responsive services offered

by school counselors, it is also an ethical responsibil-

ity of school counselors to refer students and/or

their families to outside school or community support

resources when necessary (American School Coun-

selor Association [ASCA], 2004). School counselors

use outside resources for a variety of reasons includ-

ing, but not limited to, family counseling, academic

tutoring, family support, and mentoring. We believe

that school counselors are in a unique position to

provide leadership to coordinate school stakeholders

to find resources and referral sources that can help

meet the needs of the school. Only through immers-

ing themselves in the community can school coun-

selors learn who the people of influence are, who the

voices of the community are, where the most effec-

tive resources are, and which organizations have the

respect of the people (Bryan, 2005). Community

asset mapping provides the means to do so.

In an effort to address how school counselors can

be proactive in finding services for the schools while

simultaneously laying the foundation for school-

family-community partnerships, this article draws

information from various disciplines to explore the

utility and benefits of community asset mapping and

its application in the school setting. We open the dis-

cussion with an examination of community asset

mapping, followed by a rationale of why school

counselors are in the best positions to organize this

process. We finish with a step-by-step guide for

school counselors to use community asset mapping

and a summary of limitations and implications for

school counselor practice.

COMMUNITY ASSET MAPPING

Community asset mapping is part of a more general

movement in the United States for people to

become more self-reliant and develop stronger social

relationships (Jasek-Rysdahl, 2001). Defined as a

drawing of a map of what is valuable in communities

(Dorfman, 1998), a fundamental component of

community asset mapping is a list of compiled, exist-

ing resources that can be used by all stakeholders. It

begins with the philosophy that all local individuals,

physical structures, natural resources, institutions,

businesses, or informal organizations can play an

effective role in addressing important student and

school matters (Kerka, 2003). In using community

asset mapping, there are three levels of assets to con-

sider. The first level consists of the gifts, skills, and

capacities of individuals living within the communi-

ty. The second level focuses on citizen associations

through which local people come together to pursue

common goals. Finally, institutions present in the

community such as businesses, local government,

hospitals, education, and human service agencies

represent the third level of assets in community

mapping (University of Missouri, n.d.). Within these

three levels, local people and organizations are

encouraged to explore how problems might be

interrelated, and to respond to pressing issues in a

coordinated, collaborative fashion. Furthermore,

they are asked to give of their time and talents in

implementing the strategies they have had a voice in

devising (Beaulieu, 2002).

Community asset mapping can engage members

of the school and surrounding neighborhoods in

working together to identify the resources that are

already readily available to them without having to

rely on financial assistance. Given that additional

funding is hard to come by with respect to develop-

ing comprehensive, multifaceted approaches for

addressing barriers to student learning, an essential

task in improving the current situation is to catalog

school and community programs and services that

are already in place to support students, families, and

staff (UCLA, 2002). By analyzing what is available,

effective, and needed, one gains a sound basis for

formulating strategies to enhance existing resources.

Collaboration plays an essential role in building an

integrated approach to addressing barriers to mental

health and effective student functioning, and it is

especially important in light of the fact that many

parents and teachers are often unaware of the

resources available and how to access those

resources (Griffin & Galassi, 2010; UCLA, n.d.).

THE USES AND BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY ASSET MAPPING

The use of community asset mapping is not foreign

in the field of public services and helping profes-

sions, as it is commonly used in the fields of mental

and public health and social work. For example, in

its efforts to actively promote and disseminate re-

sources, the UCLA Center for Mental Health offers

its services to various student, faculty, and parent

groups in the schools by providing them with a list

of resources for psychosocial problems. The Center

partners with community programs in order to ef-

fectively provide comprehensive services to students.

Furthermore, the Center focuses on the coordina-

tion of programs, services, resources, and systems,

and it makes enhancing connections with communi-

ty resources among its central priorities. Its efforts

often are paired with a “needs assessment” to iden-

tify additional requests regarding health services in

an effort to continually offer resources that can meet

the needs of the school community (UCLA, n.d.).

1 3 : 5 J U N E 2 0 1 0 | A S C A 249

Another example of the use of community asset

mapping can be noted in a case study involving after-

school care for children in Arizona. In 2001,

Arizona’s Children’s Action Alliance (CAA) devel-

oped a resource titled “School-Age Care Tool Kit: A

Guide for Measuring Needs in Your Community.”

The resource provided step-by-step advice to com-

munity organizations on how to identify the need

for programs for school-age children and how to

assess existing program resources available in the

community (Nagle, 2003). In addition, with the use

of a Safe and Drug Free Schools grant, the CAA

piloted a program in two Arizona communities

(Tucson and Scottsdale) to assess needs and conduct

an asset assessment (Nagle). The purpose of the

asset assessment was to take inventory of the

strengths and resources available to the school and

community. From the pilot study, the CAA deter-

mined that using school personnel (those who are

anchored in the system) is an important step in con-

necting the school with the broader after-school

services community (Nagle). In addition, school

counselors were recommended as the appropriate

point of contact for linking the school to outside

resources, due to their positions in the schools.

In Lexington, KY, community members conduct-

ed community asset mapping to better connect chil-

dren with disabilities to resources (Crane & Skinner,

2003). The participants listed several reasons for

engaging in community asset mapping, including

that they (a) wanted to identify resources that were

available for youth with disabilities as they transi-

tioned from school into the work world, (b) hoped

to discover new ways to enhance school and post-

school options for youth, and (c) hoped to make

youth resources more accessible to all youth in the

community. Stakeholders in the mapping process

included representatives from their local one-stop

community-based organization, from the mayor’s

office, and from intermediary organizations.

Throughout the process, group members identified

their unique strengths in the community as well as

the resources they could contribute to meet the

needs of all children within the community.

Participants reported several benefits that came from

the mapping process and ultimately agreed that

community asset mapping allowed them to develop

a more results-driven system and build partnerships

that improved youth services, while creating a com-

prehensive resource bank that enabled students to

access the services they need (Crane & Skinner).

Another example of successful community asset

mapping can be found in Benton and Franklin coun-

ties in Washington State. In 2006, the United Way

of Benton and Franklin Counties was asked by com-

munity leaders to develop and implement a regional

health and human services plan to address the

increasingly complex demands on health and human

services. The purpose of this plan was to tighten

partnerships and to improve the efficiency and effec-

tiveness of services to those who need them the

most. In response, United Way gathered more than

200 individuals representing human services, educa-

tion, faith community, government, labor, law and

justice, stakeholders, businesses, health care, and

others to come together and get involved in this

community planning project. These parties were

divided into three community teams (Kids Matter,

Families Matter, and Community Matters). In col-

laboration with many organizations, the team mem-

bers conducted an extensive survey and analysis of

health and human services and other resources in

the counties. As a result of the asset mapping, team

members were able to gain an awareness of the

numerous programs and services available to the

local community that were specific to their area of

focus. They also were capable of identifying areas

where resources were severely lacking. The commu-

nity now reports having a strong safety net to care

for the basic needs of its citizens. Likewise, the

counties discovered a renewed emphasis on the

importance of coordination and partnership in pro-

viding for the health-care needs of their residents

(Community Solutions, 2007).

In summary, the uses and benefits of community

asset mapping are numerous. First, utilizing a com-

munity asset mapping approach to identifying

resources can help address or prevent problems such

as violence, child abuse, and substance abuse as well

as promote and enhance healthy families and com-

munities (Aronson, Wallis, O’Campo, & Schafer,

2007). Second, not only is the process of communi-

ty asset mapping free (an important factor in this

time of economic hardship), but it also provides

locations of resources and programs without forcing

schools to come up with the necessary funding for

these programs.

Third, as school counselor positions are being cut,

the counselor-to-student ratio places a strain on the

school counselor and his or her ability to fully pro-

vide for each student’s individual needs. By having a

list of resources and partners available in the com-

munity, school counselors are capable of lessening

their loads while still meeting the needs of their stu-

dents. If correctly implemented, community asset

mapping can actually increase the amount of time a

school counselor has with his or her students by

allowing those in the community to provide for stu-

dents where they can, thus freeing the school coun-

selor to attend to any further needs. In addition to

lightening school counselors’ caseloads, community

asset mapping has the potential to help determine

whether existing resources (both inside and outside

of the school) are the best and most effective

250 A S C A | P R O F E S S I O N A L S C H O O L C O U N S E L I N G

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resources to meet the needs of the students. Last,

community asset mapping can be used to strength-

en school and community partnerships. Through

enhancing coordination and collaboration among

stakeholders, schools can demonstrate to teachers,

parents, and community members how to put forth

effort to reach out and partner with others to pro-

mote the positive development of students.

RATIONALE FOR SCHOOL COUNSELORS’ USE OF COMMUNITY ASSET MAPPING

Due to the nature of their profession, school coun-

selors are charged with the task of collaborating with

stakeholders in order to optimize the academic,

career, and personal development of their students.

Palladino-Schultheiss (2005) asserted that with the

increasing demands facing schools today, school

counselors can no longer function in isolation from

the community in which they work. As the impor-

tance and benefits of school-family-community part-

nerships have emerged, school counselors are being

called upon to take active roles in developing and

implementing partnerships in the schools (Bemak,

2000; Bryan & Holcomb-McCoy, 2004; House &

Hayes, 2002; Keys, Bemak, Carpenter, & King-

Sears, 1998). Recent literature has emphasized the

importance of school counselors developing and

implementing partnerships into part of their com-

prehensive school counseling program (e.g., Bemak;

Green & Keys, 2001; Keys et al.; Palladino-

Schultheiss). Additionally, the importance of net-

working and collaborating with the community is

written into the framework of school counselors’

training. According to the 2009 standards of the

Council for Accreditation of Counseling and

Related Educational Programs, school counseling

programs must train individuals to understand how

school-family-community collaboration can enhance

student learning and to understand how to work

with families, staff, communities, and students to

promote academic, career, and personal/social

achievement.

Furthermore, the ASCA National Model® recom-

mends that school counselors have more of a leader-

ship role in developing programs to meet the needs

of the students (ASCA, 2005). As professional

school counselors are among the most qualified and

appropriately positioned individuals to carry out

community asset mapping in the schools and local

community (Bryan, 2005), we assert that develop-

ing a community asset map is one way that school

counselors can meet the needs of their student pop-

ulation by performing in roles designated by the

guidelines in the ASCA National Model. We next

describe a four-step approach that school counselors

can use to create a community asset map.

FOUR-STEP APPROACH FOR CREATING A COMMUNITY ASSET MAP

The four-step approach to organizing and develop-

ing a community asset map is based on Anderson-

Butcher and Ashton’s (2004) multidisciplinary ap-

proach to collaboration and Kretzmann and Mc-

Knight’s (1993) approach to asset mapping. Em-

bedded in these steps are opportunities for school

counselors to engage in activities consistent with the

leadership, advocacy, and collaboration and teaming

themes promoted by ASCA (2005). The following

steps will be explored in depth for the remainder of

this article:

1. Develop a multidisciplinary team.

2. Examine and assess a current list of identified

resources, services, and programs, and identify

new ones.

3. Contact individual and community resources.

4. Develop and maintain a community resource

guide, and map the assets.

Develop a Multidisciplinary Team

As the community asset mapping coordinator,

school counselors must first use their leadership abil-

ities to create a multidisciplinary team of school and

community stakeholders to help develop, imple-

ment, and maintain the community asset map.

ASCA (2005) recommends the development of

advisory councils, and these councils also might be

appropriate to serve as the core group that will

develop the community asset map. Team members

can be teachers, school social workers, school psy-

chologists, those in community and mental health

social work services, parents, community members,

or anyone with vested interest in the success of stu-

dents. It is important to note that members of the

team must be multiculturally competent and not

hold negative viewpoints and stereotypes of poor

and minority children and families (Bryan, 2005).

Parents of both successful and at-risk children also

should be a part of the multidisciplinary team.

Parents can be overlooked as potential resources,

but Amatea, Daniels, Bringman, and Vandiver

(2004) asserted that viewing families as resources

and the experts on their children actually helps to

empower parents to be more proactive in helping to

meet the needs of their children.

Family members and community stakeholders can

function as cultural brokers on the multidisciplinary

team. Cultural brokers are minority individuals who

are acculturated into mainstream culture yet under-

stand the culture of the families with whom the

school wants to work, can help school staff under-

stand the values and beliefs of the family, and can be

a bridge to helping the school understand the fami-

1 3 : 5 J U N E 2 0 1 0 | A S C A 251

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ly culture and the family understand the school cul-

ture (Mitchell & Bryan, 2007; Singh, McKay, &

Singh, 1999). Because cultural brokers have knowl-

edge of the cultural aspects of the family, they also

may have insight into unlisted resources that families

use in the community, such as community resources

or friends in the community. For example, cultural

brokers in African American communities may be

aware of non-blood relatives, the church, Black

sororities and fraternities, and community organiza-

tions such as the Black Masons that could be possi-

ble sources of support for individuals in the com-

munity (Day-Vines, Patton, & Baytops, 2003; Law-

son, Rodgers-Rose, & Rajaram, 1999; Pescosolido

& Boyer, 1999). Cultural brokers exist in every com-

munity, and using cultural brokers as part of the

multidisciplinary team can enhance trust and open

the lines of communication between families and the

school (Mitchell & Bryan).

Examine and Assess a Current List of Identified

Resources, Services, and Programs, and Identify

New Ones

At the onset, creating and developing a community

asset map may feel like a time-intensive task, but the

key is to start small. One way to begin is to start with

a current list of identified referral sources (Van

Velsor & Orozco, 2007), gradually add to the list by

using the aforementioned steps, and rely on the

multidisciplinary team to collaborate on the com-

munity asset map. The multidisciplinary team

should list all known resources and supports that

currently exist within and outside of the school, and

also note what services they provide for students

and/or families and the cost of the services. Not

only will this help to identify overlapping and dupli-

cate services (UCLA, n.d.), but also to enable the

school counselor to advocate for strength-enhancing

environments that have proven to be effective in

promoting academic and personal/social achieve-

ment in students (Galassi & Akos, 2007).

The team can identify resources by asking every-

day contacts about their knowledge of resources in

the community. For example, team members can ask

students, parents, and school staff about the church-

es they attend or the community activities that occur

in their neighborhoods. Other ways to generate in-

formation and make contact with potential resources

is through the community sections of the local news-

paper, in which there are often listings of various

activities offered around the city. The city or county

library also can be a great source for community

resources as libraries offer free resources for students

and their families. Furthermore, the United Way can

be an optimal place to begin to become familiar with

and generate new resources (Newton, 2010; Nissani

& Singleton, 2010; Weiss & Lopez, 2010).

In generating the list, it is important to include all

three levels of assets that can be found in the com-

munity (individuals within the community, citizen

associations, and institutions present in or nearby

the community), such as neighborhood associations,

civic clubs, community centers (Atkinson &

Juntunen, 1994), churches (Day-Vines et al., 2003),

colleges and universities, and businesses and profes-

sional corporations (i.e., banks, small businesses)

(Bryan, 2005). Many of these resources can serve as

sources of academic and career support in the form

of mentors, tutors, pre-college academic preparation

programs, and career information (Bryan). These

resources also can provide services to meet the men-

tal health or personal/social needs of students.

Working with professionals who are trained in

addressing the mental health needs will leave more

time for focusing on the academic concerns and

education of children (Anderson-Butcher & Ashton,

2004).

As individual people often lend their skills and tal-

ents to local activities such as serving on communi-

ty celebration committees and neighborhood

groups, they can bring these talents and resources

into the school (Beaulieu, 2002). For example, par-

ents can provide tutoring lessons and carpools for

those who need it. Another example is of a parent of

young children who is also a high school math

teacher and who agrees to tutor students in math for

free in exchange for free child care when needed (A.

Peterson, personal communication, January 23,

2009).

Contact Individual and Community Resources

The next step is to contact the list of resources that

have been generated by the team. The list can be

divided among the team members and each person’s

job is to contact possible resources and to get the

most recent information on the services they cur-

rently provide, the goals and activities of their pro-

grams, the cost of their services, their current hours,

location, and contact numbers, and, most impor-

tantly, how they can be of service to the school com-

munity (Newton, 2010). It is also important to get

permission to list names of individuals and business-

es before adding them to the community resource

guide (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993).

In addition to contacting the possible resources

over the telephone, the resources should be visited

and investigated to explore any potential barriers

that may be faced by students and families, to

explore any criteria for accessing the services, and to

assess for validity (Newton, 2010; Nissani & Single-

ton, 2010). Making actual visits to the resources can

lead to increased awareness of the neighborhoods

and communities where the resources are located.

This is an important aspect as learning about the

252 A S C A | P R O F E S S I O N A L S C H O O L C O U N S E L I N G

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communities where the students live is a vital com-

ponent of school-family-community collaboration

(Nissani & Singleton; Weiss & Lopez, 2010). Other

ways to account for the services is by using the

knowledge of prior patrons. For example, a rating

system can be employed based on feedback from us-

ers of the services. Finally, a system should be in

place for letting families know whether services have

actually been used.

Develop and Maintain a Community Asset Map,

and Map the Assets

The final step involves making an inventory of all

available resources in a user-friendly guide. The mul-

tidisciplinary team can work together to create the

guide. We recommend placing an electronic copy of

the guide on the school’s website and having a hard-

copy form available to all parents and school staff to

ensure that it is available to those without Internet

access. Ideally, it also should be available in the lan-

guages that are most prominent in the school so that

most families can utilize the map. To perform the

translation, school counselors can work with stu-

dents or teachers in language classes in the school,

local colleges and universities’ language depart-

ments, or individuals who speak the language.

Throughout the process of community asset map-

ping, these steps will need to be revisited to ensure

a complete mapping of the assets of the community.

It is important to know that the map is never com-

plete, and it should be continually updated and

revised based on the needs of the school and on the

dynamic nature of community resources (Kretz-

mann & McKnight, 1993). Updates can occur

throughout the school year as new resources

become available, and the team can meet annually to

revisit all the steps and to update the map.

There also should be a visual representation of the

community asset map (Appalachia Educational

Laboratory, 2000; Dorfman, 1998). Maps, or spatial

data, have been utilized in community agency fields

to help locate and understand the location of servic-

es as well as the physical and social risk factors and

protective factors that are centered around the loca-

tions (Aronson et al., 2007). Maps can provide the

school community with a visual representation of

what is available, and they can be used to help fami-

lies locate a wide array of resources more easily than

in a community resource guide, as they visually rep-

resent areas of resources and service providers. Asset

maps can take various forms and pictorial represen-

tations (e.g., Dorfman), and they should include key

people, organizations, and businesses. An example

of a basic community asset map that can be created

by school counselors is found in Figure 1. Adapted

from Dorfman, it is a hypothetical depiction of a

suburban school community and all community

resources within a 10-mile radius of the community.

Because not all communities are located near the

school, it is important that the community asset map

pinpoint resources near the community where the

families live and not just the school itself. Maps can

be more detailed to depict the actual locations of

individuals and institutions that can address the spe-

cific needs of the school that are not being met.

Community asset maps also can be in an online

format. For example, Google Maps is a good way to

have an online visual representation of the assets.

Google Maps can be used to pinpoint actual loca-

tions, addresses, and phone numbers of the commu-

nity assets and resources as well as to provide direc-

tions to the various resources (see maps.google.

com/help/maps/mymaps/create.html for directions

on how to create a community asset map). A link to

the map can placed on the school’s website. School

counselors can collaborate with computer technolo-

gy specialists to help with creating a visual picture of

the community asset map in an online format.

Currently, no research exists on the amount of

time school counselors will need to create a commu-

nity asset map. Therefore, after taking into account

the other duties that school counselors have, we rec-

ommend that the entire process, from developing a

multidisciplinary team to creating a visual communi-

ty asset map, should take no more than 7 months:

that is, 2 months to develop the team, 2 months to

identify resources, 2 months to contact resources,

and 1 month to develop the map. Typically, com-

munity organizations can create a community asset

map in as few as 3 hours, but this entails actually

going into the community and mapping the assets in

conjunction with making direct contact with re-

sources (Tindle, Leconte, Buchanan, & Taymans,

2005). We believe that the advantages in creating a

community asset map (i.e., knowledge of the com-

munity and development of relationships that can

help promote student success) outweigh the time

commitment in the mapping process.

CONCLUSION

Schools and school counselors cannot function

alone to meet the needs of all students, and student

success depends on collaborating with other stake-

holders (Anderson-Butcher & Ashton, 2004; Bryan,

2005; Erford, 2003; Palladino-Schultheiss, 2005).

Creating a community asset map calls for school

counselors to step outside of the traditional role of

school counseling and take on a strengths-based per-

spective in addressing the needs of their schools, in

that it calls for school counselors to work with teach-

ers, administrators, parents, and other community

members to find resources that can enhance or pro-

mote strength-enhancing environments (Galassi &

1 3 : 5 J U N E 2 0 1 0 | A S C A 253

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Akos, 2007). Further, it calls for school counselors

to be deeply committed to collaboration, and to

have collaboration as part of the foundation for their

comprehensive school counseling program. Hence,

they will need to have buy-in from their school

administrators and other school stakeholders in

order to create the community asset map.

Community asset mapping can help school coun-

selors collaborate with families and communities and

become knowledgable of the community in which

the school is located and its resources (Bryan, 2005;

Van Velsor & Orozco, 2007), which is especially

needed in a time when funding for programs and

services is being cut. Community asset maps also can

provide an abundance of information for those who

need it, can enable school counselors to locate re-

sources that meet the needs of a larger student pop-

ulation, and can open the lines of communication

254 A S C A | P R O F E S S I O N A L S C H O O L C O U N S E L I N G

Figure 1. Example of a community asset map.

among school stakeholders. Additionally, they can

provide parents with necessary information, empow-

ering them to be more proactive in procuring

resources for their children. Finally, community asset

mapping provides an avenue for school counselors

to align themselves with the ASCA National Model

and pursue systemic change through leadership, col-

laboration and teaming, and advocacy to promote

student achievement. ■

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