Introduction: School counselling in East and Southeast Asia

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the factors that have shaped – and continue to shape – the evolution of school counselling in East and Southeast Asia. We briefly outline the context of counselling in the region and highlight the need for creative responses to the changes taking place by considering three examples: the challenges and opportunities of technology, the development of career counselling, and the need for robust and contextualised ethical practice. We suggest that the development of school counselling should rest on two pillars, namely the adoption of an ecological perspective and the indigenisation of counselling frameworks. An ecological paradigm recognises that counsellors work in complex ecologies of overlapping and interacting systems and seeks to address the many factors which influence counselling practice. These factors include the positions counsellors occupy in schools, the roles they carry out, their professional identity, and their collaboration with parents, teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders. Indigenous framework development should be undertaken in collaboration with these stakeholders and should be responsive to the constantly changing needs of young people. Finally, we provide an overview of the chapters in this volume.