📄
Abstract
Guidance and Counseling services have a strategic role in supporting students’ holistic development, including academic, social, emotional, and moral aspects. However, in practical implementation, counseling services in schools still show a gap between theoretical ideal concepts and real field practices. This study aims to analyze the role of school counselors in the implementation of Guidance and Counseling services at MTs Ibnu Sina Karawang, focusing on the counselor’s role, teacher-student interaction patterns, supporting factors, and challenges faced during implementation. This research employed a qualitative approach through semi-structured interviews with the school principal, teachers, and selected students. The findings show that the counselor plays multiple roles, namely as a disciplinary guide, personal counselor, moral educator, and facilitator of religious character strengthening. The interaction between counselors and students is carried out through humanistic, empathetic and communicative approaches. Supporting factors include strong collaboration among teachers, principals, homeroom teachers, and religious-based school activities. Meanwhile, several obstacles are found such as limited number of counselors, lack of students’ comprehensive understanding about BK functions, limited time allocation, and negative stigma that counseling services are only for problematic students. This research emphasizes the need for strengthening counseling literacy and transforming services into more preventive, developmental, collaborative, and continuously progressive student-oriented programs.