Counseling Toward Solutions: A Practical Solution-Focused Program for Working with Students, Teachers, and Parents, 2nd Edition

When it was first published in 1995, Linda Metcalf’s book Counseling Toward Solutions became an instant bestseller. Written for counselors and teachers at all levels, this revised and updated second edition of Counseling Toward Solutions presents a positive program for changing individual behavior that empowers students of all ages to deal with their own problems, gaining self-esteem in the process.

Step by step, the book shows how to help individual students begin their own change process by noticing when a problem does not occur—that is, when things go better than normal—rather than focusing on the problem or what caused it. This approach, called Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, has been used by private counselors and therapists and is now being applied in K-12 schools with great success.

In this book veteran school counselor Linda Metcalf offers guidelines for dealing with specific problems ranging from incomplete homework to child abuse and depression. She offers techniques that are equally useful in one-on-one counseling and small group settings, and she provides ways to help non-counseling staff use the solution-focused approach. Metcalf covers a wealth of topics, including:

1. Helping students set their own goals,change their own behavior, and rebuildtheir reputations
2. Identifying "exceptions" to a student'snegative behavior
3. Working with students who are frustrated, sad, or unmotivated
4. Specific strategies for parent conferences and student-teacher problem resolution
5. Sample dialogues showing what to say and questions to ask
6. In addition, the book offers more than 80 reproducible worksheets and student handouts.

About The Author:
Linda Metcalf, Ph.D., is a certified school counselor, licensed professional counselor, and licensed marriage and family therapist in the State of Texas. She is an associate professor and director of school counseling at Texas Wesleyan University. Metcalf is the author of numerous books, including Parenting Toward Solutions.