Crisis in the Family: Counselor Anxiety and Self-Efficacy in Responding to Family Crises

Abstract

Counselors are reporting their job duties include crisis response at a frequency of at least weekly. However, counselors have previously reported a lack of curriculum exposure to crisis response training. Unfortunately, there is a growing need for counselors to intervene with crises at the family level due to increases of children entering foster care and higher rates of mass causality events. This study will seek to assess counselor’s anxiety and self-efficacy across licensure levels when responding to a family in crisis. Assessment of the counselor’s anxiety and self-efficacy will be measured with the State-Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Counselor Self- Estimate Inventory (COSE). This study used nonprobability sampling to recruit 30 participants. The research questions were answered with three repeated-measures MANOVAs, and six univariate analyses. No statistical significance was found with respect to the COSE. Additionally, no significance was noted with respect to curriculum exposure and changes on the COSE or STAI. Statistical significance was found on the STAI in a three-way interaction [F (2, 26) = 7.31, p = .012, ? p 2 = .22] between licensure, years of experience, and changes over-time on the STAI.