S a r a h M.

H e n r y The Ohio State University

henry.1078@osu.edu
PhD Student, Counselor Education & Supervision 540-522-0441

RESEARCH STATEMENT

ALTERNATIVE TEXT FOR I MAGE

Components of my research agenda are rooted in school counselors meeting students’ needs. This is
surrounded by connected circles that influence the way that school counselors are able to meet
students' needs by a) building protective factors, b) engaging community members, c) fostering
student voice. An overarching understanding of the ways that spatial inequalities influence students’
needs sits atop of this graphic model.

INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH AGENDA

The Rappahannock River has formed me and the communities I love—raised where the river starts
and began my career as a full-time school counselor where the river meets the Chesapeake Bay. The
word Rappahannock originates from Algonquian language, as the word mirrors the rise and fall of the
river. The ebbs and flow of the river lead to where fresh water meets salt water—where agricultural
runoff is mixed into oyster beds and crab pots. Just 195 miles away, these two rural communities are
vastly different. When I arrived in the Northern Neck, I was asked “How long do you think you’ll
stay?” by one of my new student’s parents. She added, “You’re a Come-Here, not a Been-Here. My kids
won’t trust you unless they know you’re a Stay-Here.” This small, rural school had been through 8
school counselors in 8 years. I was a fresh graduate of a school counseling program, wearing clogs in the
summertime in a community that processed menhaden fish meal to make fish oil and fertilizer. I wasn’t
sure what my ten-year plan was when she asked, I just knew that this rural coastal community was
different from the mountainous one I grew up in. My hometown rural community didn’t use the
terms “Been Heres” and “Come Heres,” rather we used other terms to describe what researchers call
“continued generational family status.”

Rural school counselors are uniquely positioned to address students’ social/emotional, academic and
career needs within a community context; however, little research has been conducted on the
connection between school counselors and the communities they serve. I am interested in the roles that
school counselors play in building protective factors, engaging community, and fostering student voice,
particularly in ways that address spatial inequalities. For instance, rurality influences opportunity gaps
in higher education, resource gaps in mental health care, and the overall culture of K-12 schools.

DISSERTATION
In support of my research agenda and interests, I strive to best understand how school counselors
define their sense of place, as well as the formation of relationships between rural school counselors
with their communities. Finally, I strive to understand the regional nuances of social justice work
through rural spaces, communities, and schools relationships. I will conduct a series of site visits and
phenomenological interviews throughout the geographic region of the Rural Horseshoe of Virginia.
Although this cannot be generalized to all rurality, it can help better conceptualize rural consciousness
and rural identity in Virginia, including in coastal, farming, and coal mining communities.

My dissertation is formed by the influences of Critical Rural Theory (Thomas et al., 2011), which
explores rural stereotypes and symbols, such as rural deviancy, wildness, simplicity, and escapism,
which all contribute to the “othering” of rural spaces, cultural traditions, and identities. Critical Rural
Theory is built from the foundations of critical theories and the Communities Capital Framework
(Flora and Flora, 2008). Centering this work within a multidimensional understanding of rural issues
as both strengths and barriers acknowledges and aims to utilize a variety of ways communities can
develop through natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial, and built capitals. Finally, by
utilizing Critical Pedagogy of Place (Greenwood, 2003) to better understand responsive school
counseling programming, I explore the complexities of social constructs within communities.

C O N T R I B U T I O N T O T H E F I E LD
In addition to phenomenological research through my dissertation on school counselors, rural
communities, and place-based social justice, I am an active member of several research teams at the
Ohio State University and West Virginia University. My research interests and energy is focused on
impacting current school counselors’ practices, as well as the training of current school counseling
students. I am interested and have sought experiences in both qualitative and quantitative research
methods, as well as theoretically based manuscripts that strive to best apply theory into practice.

My qualitative research experience began with a course in collaborative ethnography about

placemaking in forested southeastern Ohio, which explored the relationship between communities and
the place they grow. I was partnered with David Butcher, the founder and director of the Tablertown
People of Color Museum, where I assisted him in document archival and a series of interviews of
community members about their experiences of living in Appalachian Ohio as a person of Color. I was
also partnered with a photographer, Marcus Morris, who was a descendant of this community and
documented the people and places as conducted interviews. Additionally, I partnered with Dr. Rawn
Boulden, assistant professor at West Virginia University, to co-create and carry out a phenomenological
study on rural high school counselors experiences with career counseling. This project seeks to
understand the nuance of career counseling when faced with spatial inequalities, while embracing
community strengths.

My quantitative research experience is rooted in understanding best practices for school counselors to
meet student needs. I have aided in design, instrument selection, literature review, and data collection
for a project looking at the impacts of the True Goal’s school counseling curriculum on practicum
students’ self-efficacy. Additionally, I have assisted in literature reviews and/or manuscript preparation
for three other quantitative studies to expand my knowledge base on topics including anxiety and
depression, social justice identity’s relationship with suicide prevention, and factors influencing
relationship building between school counselors and students.

My experience with theoretical manuscripts about applying the Advocating Student Within
Environment theory to practice in addressing Social Determinants of Mental Health (SDOMH) and
applying the Ecological Model of School Counseling to rural school counselors demonstrates my
interest in putting theory into informed practice.

NEXT RESEARCH PROJECT

For my future work, I hope to continue to investigate how school counselors build community
relationships and incorporate these stakeholders in delivery and construction of school counseling
programming. Expanding from my dissertation and the phenomenological project with Dr. Boulden
on rural career counseling experiences of school counselors, I hope to further this research by
conducting further qualitative methods to collect strategies for rural school counselors to engage with
community stakeholders, as well as quantitative methods to analyze the impact of a sense of place on
social justice identity across a multitude of geographic spaces.

I strive to disseminate my research and materials through both publication and presentations at
conferences, especially those geared towards current practitioners. During my doctoral program, I
have worked to submit articles to Journal of Counseling & Development, Professional School Counseling,
Journal of Child & Adolescent Counseling, and Theory & Practice in Rural Education, demonstrating a
desire to reach both practitioners, trainees, and counselor educators. Additionally, this has led me to
present at 11 state level conferences and 9 regional/national conferences over the last 5 years. I hope to
continue to incorporate master’s level students in these experiences, as I worked with two students I
had formally supervised to present at a state-level conference in Ohio.

IMPACT OF RESEARCH AGENDA

Communities cannot be ignored when school counselors do their jobs within the school buildings.
Students exist in a multitude of spaces beyond the walls of schools and influenced by their
neighborhoods, state and national policy, and societal beliefs. Engaging with communities can prove a
difficult task for many school counselors, especially for beginning school counselors. Infusing
community engagement and amplifying student voice as a core of school counselor programs, not just
in theory but in practice, is key to the success of future school counselors in a variety of spaces.