At the elementary and secondary levels, guidance and counseling is most proactive when implemented using the Michigan Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Program. This program is designed to address the needs of all students by helping them to acquire and apply knowledge of self and others, develop competencies in career/life planning, and achieve educational success.

A Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling program is a systematically designed set of components including a counseling curriculum, responsive services, individual planning, and systems support. It is developmental in design to offer sequentially planned activities that meet the needs of children and adolescents as they grow and progress from one grade level to the next. As an integral part of each school's total educational program, qualified school counselors jointly plan with classroom teachers, administrators, community members, business/industry representatives, and parents and families for the delivery of guidance activities.

At the college level, guidance and counseling is also provided by professionally trained counselors and other specialists. Personal counseling services are generally available to students upon request. Guidance is available through counselors, academic advisors, faculty members, and staff of career planning/placement offices in the following areas: career awareness, career planning, career decision-making, placement activities, and knowledge/understanding of occupational, educational, and labor market needs, trends and opportunities. Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Standard and Benchmarks

Standard
The participating education agency board of education or designee will have adopted a customized Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Program based on the Michigan Comprehensive Guidance and Counseling Program (MSCA,1997) to direct the delivery of counseling and guidance services to students.

Benchmarks
· The local board of education or designee has adopted and customized the Comprehensive Guidance Counseling Program that meets the state standard.

· Ensures an action plan is designed and implemented to establish and operate the Program in the district on an ongoing basis.

· Ensures that the Program has a mission statement and purpose consistent with the district's goals.

· Ensures that a student needs assessment is conducted with parents, educators, and students to help determine areas of priority for Program development as evidenced by documented assessment results.

· Ensures that the Program provides for the development of student competencies in the areas of Career Planning and Exploration, Knowledge of Self and Others, and Educational/Career-Technical Development as evidenced by the guidance program plan.

· Ensures that the Program Components of Guidance Curriculum, Individual Planning, Responsive Services, and Systems Support are implemented in order to provide a full range of activities to enhance student learning and preparation for future success as evidenced by the guidance program plan.

· Ensures that the Program is delivered to all K-12 students in each building appropriate to each developmental level (elementary, middle and high school) as evidenced by the existence of all four comprehensive guidance programmatic components in each building.

· Ensures the Program is evaluated to determine progress and to set continuous improvement goals as evidenced by documented evaluation results.