Date

5-22-2024

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)

Chair

Gail Roaten

Keywords

COVID-19, pandemic, rural, school counselor, mental health, students

Disciplines

Public Health

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive phenomenological study was to describe the lived experiences of rural Texas counselors when working with students’ mental health in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study aims to answer questions of what school counselors describe as the mental health environment for students in rural Texas schools prior, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic and the changes in the mental health environment of rural students. Most existing research has been focused on how COVID-19 changed school counselors’ roles and responsibilities and how the pandemic affected students’ mental health. The current study concentrated on the experiences the rural school counselors have had in the time following the pandemic to better understand the current mental health environment for rural students. The theory guiding this study is Kurt Lewin’s theory of change, which helps to describe the pandemic’s effects of change on rural Texas schools’ mental health environment in the post-pandemic era by exploring the counselors’ lived experiences during that time. Data was collected through semistructured interviews with rural school counselors from different regions of Texas. A conceptual mapping task is the methodology used within the study to examine data and information from the interviews. This method permits a flexible yet distinct data-checking process, allowing the participants a voice that is accurately represented for thorough reporting.

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