After the ""Student Guidance and Counseling Act"" was enacted in 2014 in Taiwan, the Ministry of Education has provided funding to subsidize public and private colleges and universities for hiring full-time and part-time professional guidance counselors (Clinical Psychologist, Counseling Psychologist, & Social worker) to provide mental health service to students. In the process of promoting this important educational policy, it is important to assess how the increase of professional staff has impacted manpower allocation, organizational changes, school counseling work and effectiveness, and future feasible actions for college counseling work. The purpose of the study was to explore the effectiveness of the recruitment of full-time and part-time counselors in colleges and universities, as well as the impact of school counseling. The data were derived from responses of 122 public and private colleges and universities to the Ministry of Education’s self-evaluation forms. In addition, 40 college counseling center directors and deans of Student Affairs were invited to participate in focus group discussion. Also, presidents and vice presidents of three colleges and universities were interviewed individually in depth to examine the effectiveness of full-time and part-time professional guidance counselors, and their impact on college counseling. The research findings are:
(1) The 122 schools employed totally 490 full-time professional guidance counselors, of which 415 are counseling psychologists. The service time of full-time professional counselors was 84.53% spending in the administrative services, except the individual counseling. Part-time professional counselors focused on individual counseling, test interpretation, and group/class counseling.(2) The quantity and quality of professional guidance counselors in each school have improved, which has also prompted each school gradually to comply with the law. However, it is not a long-term solution for each school to rely solely on funding from the Ministry of Education. Schools should continue to review and pay attention to the counselor-to-student ratio, and allocate resources to support recruitment of counselors. In addition, the roles and tasks of different counseling professionals, as well as the mode of division of labor and cooperation, still need to be continuously examined by each school.(3) The impact of the increasing number of professional guidance counselors is as follows: more initiative in counseling work, and more pratical in counseling services, cross-unit cooperation, adequate counselors to deal with crisis cases, improving the quantity and quality of counseling work, enriching school resources and professional diversity, and deepening and broadening the counseling work, etc.(4) One of the challenges for professional guidance counselors comes from the expectations of the school’s senior supervisors. The senior officials of the school expected that professional guidance counselors may maintain flexibility in their roles and tasks, and have more interaction and cooperation with personnel from different units in the school system.(5) The impact of low birth rate has led to uncertainty in the source of enrollment. Therefore, schools are relatively conservative in hiring professional guidance counselors. Whether or not the funding subsidy policy continues will affect the willingness of schools to continue the employment policy of professional guidance counselors.
Based on the above findings, this study proposed suggestions for counseling practice, policy, and future research. Recommendations for policy and future research:(1) Survey the needs of students and enhance the role and function of professional counselors. (2) The role, tasks, division of labor, and cooperation between different mental health professionals (Clinical Psychologist, Counseling Psychologist, & Social worker) should be continuously assessed in order to improve the effectiveness of professional guidance counselors. (3) Improve the understanding of the senior supervisors in the school about professional guidance counseling. (4) Maintain the stability of funding subsidies and human resources policies. (5) The Ministry of Education should continue to support the professional guidance counseling in universities to meet the needs of students.
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