The influence of professional identity on partnerships between private school counsellors and parents in the Philippines

Abstract

Partnerships between school counsellors and parents can improve students’ wellbeing and learning outcomes. School counsellors are well placed to take on central roles in the development and maintenance of such partnerships. However, research is limited on counsellor-parent partnerships in the Philippines, where the professional identities of school counsellors are less well developed. We interviewed 13 private school counsellors to explore how perceptions of their professional identities influence practices related to school-home partnerships and conducted a thematic analysis on the data. Our findings suggest that effective partnerships are supported by counsellors’ beliefs about the importance of such partnerships, and to some extent by schools’ recognition of the value of counsellors. However, partnerships are undermined by counsellors’ unclear and inappropriate roles and their low status. Cultural characteristics also impede effective partnerships. School counsellors in the Philippines need a well-defined role aligned with their competencies, scope of practice, and code of ethics and may need to be more empowered by principals to develop counsellor-parent partnerships in culturally appropriate ways.