Abstract
M.Ed.
The primary purpose of this enquiry was to discover whether or not a relation exists between how school counselors’ in training, enrolled in an Honours programme relates to the proposed theoretical model of counselor development by Skovholt and Ronnestad (1992). The three-stage model assumes that counselors, who engage with a registered educational counselor training programme, progressively move through the incremental stages transitioning towards personal and professional development. A second purpose was to address the paucity of research, specifically in the context of South Africa, addressing the personal and professional development literature of registered counselors in training. A qualitative research methodology was used to collect data, which was derived from 3 purposefully-spaced semi-structured interviews with 5 participants across their training year. Categories were identified through the process of open coding, resulting in the emergence of 3 themes – namely: the beginning school counselor, the practicing school counselor and the emerging helping professional - emphasising the process of school counselor development. It is evident from this study that a relation exists between that of the proposed theoretical model and the honours school counselor training programme in which the participants were involved. It is recommended that the honours school counselor training programme offered by the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Johannesburg be refined, by acknowledging Skovholt and Ronnestad’s (1992) theoretical model, which emphasises the processes of counselor development. By documenting the training experiences of the participants in a school counselor programme, insight has been gained into the processes underway for a school counselor in training, as they develop in a personal and professional capacity.