The investigation of coping strategies which school counselors use in crisis intervention: Izmir city sample

The nature and commonness of the crisis have been changed in recent years. The people who lived during last decades of the 20th century had to deal with new complicated and longterm problems. There are crisis situations which inevitably effect all nations, destroy communication, disturb individuals and their families. It?s not so possible for individuals to run away from crisis that comes into existence in their or others? lives. Most of the individuals, independent of their roles and jobs, may face with crisis in some part of their lives. (Janosik, 1986:3) Although number of the studies about crisis intervention increase, there?s still need for studies to improve school counselors? crisis coping strategies which is a key in terms of students? mental health especially considering the increase in the numbers of crisis situations in schools. For this purpose in this research, it was searched whether crisis coping strategies of school counselors were differentiated significantly according to various variables. The sample of the research was composed of 320 school counselors who are working in private and official primary and secondary schools in city center of Izmir. The data of the research were obtained through ?Personal Information Form? and ?Coping Strategies used in Crisis Intervention Scale? which were prepared by the researcher. The data obtained from the scales were coded according to the variables and analyzed by using SPSS software. The mean and standard deviation of variables were computed. t-test was used to determine if the difference between means of two groups was significant, Variance Analysis was used to determine if the difference between means of more than two groups was significant. In cases where there are more than two groups and the difference between means was significant Scheffe test was used to determine which groups differ between themselves.It was observed that school counselors? crisis coping strategies? ?evaluation of crisis situation? dimension was differentiated significantly according to their experience. School counselors who have a 11-15 year experience in their job had significantly higher points.It was observed that school counselors? crisis coping strategies? ?evaluation of crisis situation? dimension was differentiated significantly according to the presence of a master?s degree. School counselors who do not have a master?s degree had significantly higher points.It was observed that school counselors? crisis coping strategies? ?evaluation of crisis situation?, ?constituting social network? and ?general? dimensions were differentiated significantly according to their participation to psychosocial training program. School counselors who didn?t attend to the program had significantly higher points in all three dimensions.It was observed that school counselors? crisis coping strategies? ?providing social support?, ?acquiring coping skills?, ?constituting social network? and ?general? dimensions were differentiated significantly according to their participation to prevention and mitigation of violence training program. School counselors who attended the program had significantly higher points in all four dimensions.It was observed that school counselors? crisis coping strategies? ?evaluation of crisis situation? dimension was differentiated significantly according to school?s state of being public or private. School counselors who are working in private schools had significantly higher points.It was observed that school counselors? crisis coping strategies? ?providing social support?, ?acquiring coping skills?,? constituting social network? and ?general? dimensions were differentiated significantly according to their license program which they graduated from. ?providing social support? dimension points of graduates from ?Education Program Teaching? and ?Psychology? differentiated significantly and graduates from Psychology had significantly higher points for ?providing social support?, ?acquiring coping skills? and ?general? dimension points. It is observed that ?Psychological Counseling and Guidance? and ?Psychology? graduates? ?constituting social network? points are significantly higher than ?Education Program Teaching? graduates?.According to the research results, it was observed that school counselors? crisis coping strategies do not differentiate significantly in terms of their age, gender, school type and the socio-economic situation of the school?s location.