Depression In School Counseling Essay

School counselors are responsible for assessing, addressing, and advocating for the academic, career, and personal/social needs of students. Helping students achieve success in each of these areas can be a demanding and complex task. Many students will face barriers that may stifle their ability to achieve along these domains unless school counselors are able to effectively intervene on their behalf. One of the most substantial barriers to student success is the increasing prevalence of depression among adolescent populations. The World Health Organization recently published a report that identifies depression as the most common mental health issue for adolescents world-wide (Erickson & Abel, 2013). A large amount of research points to depression as a significant barrier to academic achievement, career success, and personal/social well-being (Verboom, Sijtsema, Verhulst, Penninx, & Ormel, 2013; Li & Lerner, 2011) . School counselors need to be aware of the serious negative impact of depression on their students. They must also be prepared to offer effective …show more content…
Existing research, however, seems to show that detrimental effects of depression regarding the other domains follow similar trends in career development. For example, negative self-concept, school absenteeism, and lower rates of social well-being during middle and high school seem to correlate with lower levels of career satisfaction, lower levels of educational attainment, and higher levels of work absenteeism in young adults (Kuwabara, Van Voorhees, Gollan, & Alexander, 2007). This correlation is expected if depression creates similar barriers to gaining effective career development skills as it does for gaining skills in the other educational domains. Further research is needed to affirm this connection and to develop effective