Counseling Toward Solutions: A Practical Solution-Focused Program

Mon, 17 Sep 2018 04:00:33 GMT

Counseling Toward Solutions: A Practical Solution-Focused Program for Working With Students, Teachers, and Parents (2nd ed.)

Book Being Reviewed:
Metcalf, L. (2008). Counseling toward solutions: A practical solution-focused program for working with students, teachers, and parents (2nd ed.). San Francisco, California: Jossey-Bass.

Reviewer:
Rawn Boulden

Curricular Areas:
Consultation, Counselor Education, School-Based License

Subject Headings:
Elementary School, High School, Middle School

Review:
Counseling Toward Solutions: A Practical Solution-Focused Program for working with students, teachers, and parents is an excellent resource for school counselors, counselor educators, and school counseling graduate students. The author, Linda Metcalf, employed a scaffolding approach to introduce salient concepts to the reader. Metcalf devoted significant time unpacking solution-focused counseling’s core tenets. Metcalf’s explanations are clear and understandable for all audiences; this clarity is emboldened by the infusion of rich examples and scenarios to help guide the reader’s thinking. Throughout the book, Metcalf built from previous chapters and incorporated new elements and of solution-focused counseling. Additionally, Metcalf provided several templates and forms school counselors could use to employ a strengths-based solution-focused approach with students.

Metcalf’s book is an easy read and gives the reader concrete and pragmatic strategies to infuse into their work with students. This book is applicable to several audiences. Elementary, middle, and high school counselors, both novice and seasoned, could benefit from the resources shared in the book. Given solution-focused counseling’s relative recency, many school counselors may not know about solution-focused counseling. School counselors may learn strategies to further engage the school community and effect change. Graduate school counseling students could use the book to complement the information learned in their coursework and field experiences. In practicum and internship, they can apply the collective knowledge gained. The book’s reflection questions provide opportunities to consider how they may apply the information learned. Counselor educators could use the text in their courses, providing in-service opportunities for students to try out their skills in a more intimate setting. Given the book’s scenario-based layout, counselor educators could develop case studies for students to complete, considering various ethical and legal implications such as confidentiality, duty to warn, and other central counseling tenets.