Seeking School Counselors' Help: Cross-Cultural Differences in Mothers' Knowledge, Attitudes, and Actual Help-Seeking Behavior

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: Student Well-Being

Abstract

Many adolescents who need help do not receive proper assistance and rates of help-seeking among immigrant and minority groups are low compared to majority groups. Parents play a significant role in the help-seeking process as primary gate-keepers for service use. The current study explored help-seeking of Israeli-born and immigrant mothers (n= 174) to adolescents from the school counselor using mixed method design.
Immigrant mothers reported less knowledge about school counseling, held marginally less positive attitudes towards help-seeking, and reported less actual help-seeking behavior than Israeli-born mothers. Cultural background, knowledge about the counselor and attitudes towards seeking related to service utilization. Findings further indicate that knowledge plays a greater role for immigrant mothers in predicting actual behavior.

Authors

• Maya Benish-Weisman, University of Haifa

• Martha Shtapura