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Juvenile counselor skills for your resume and career

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted experts

Grace Palmisano,

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Below we've compiled a list of the most critical juvenile counselor skills. We ranked the top skills for juvenile counselors based on the percentage of resumes they appeared on. For example, 13.5% of juvenile counselor resumes contained behavioral issues as a skill. Continue reading to find out what skills a juvenile counselor needs to be successful in the workplace.

15 juvenile counselor skills for your resume and career

1. Behavioral Issues

Behavioral issues are the tendencies of individuals displaying unpleasant behavior as a result of sickness or addiction.

Here's how juvenile counselors use behavioral issues:

Provide consultation to community regarding delinquency and behavioral issues with referrals to outside agencies if warranted.
Create daily activity for youth to engage in group conversation discussing relevant social and behavioral issues

2. Rehabilitation

Here's how juvenile counselors use rehabilitation:

Document program activities, monitors security operations, and performs a variety of administrative duties designed to facilitate juvenile rehabilitation.
Arranged custodial care and referred juveniles to community resources to aid in rehabilitation, if necessary.

3. Mental Health

Mental health is the state of wellbeing in which an individual can cope with the regular stresses and tensions of life, and can work productively without having any emotional or psychological breakdown. Mental health is essential for a person of any age and helps them make the right decisions in their life.

Here's how juvenile counselors use mental health:

Provided referrals for children and families experiencing mental health crisis or needing additional support to various community services.
Performed mental health evaluations of juvenile delinquents admitted to detention centers.

4. Crisis Intervention

Here's how juvenile counselors use crisis intervention:

Restrain juveniles according to the non-violent crisis intervention training taught by certified Crisis Prevention Institute instructors.
Prevented and intervened during student incidents providing oversight management using Crisis Intervention Training Techniques.

5. Substance Abuse

Here's how juvenile counselors use substance abuse:

Provided Family Preservation therapy aimed at reducing substance abuse, reducing recidivism, and increasing pro-social alternatives.
Develop and implement at-risk assessments, individual service plans, and substance abuse evaluations for at-risk teens.

6. Direct Care

Direct care is the act of identifying people with special needs and offering the necessary care for them.

Here's how juvenile counselors use direct care:

Provided custody, supervision, direct care to juveniles generally within the ages of 10-16 within a residential secure facility.
Provided direct care, supervision and counseling to court ordered adolescents under the auspices of the Department of Juvenile Justice.

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7. Direct Supervision

Direct supervision is a term used to indicate that a person is supervising a certain task or a certain person while being physically present or in close proximity. It refers to the presence of a person and the availability of their supervision in something if it is needed.

Here's how juvenile counselors use direct supervision:

Provision of direct supervision and the safety and security of all youths in facility.
Provide direct supervision and be accountable for whereabouts of residents at all times.

8. Incident Reports

An Incident Report, in a medical facility such as hospitals and nursing homes, is a type of paperwork filled out immediately after and in the case of an incident of some sort, with the goal of describing the incident and its consequences, as well as the measurements taken after or during the incident, as well as any other information relevant to said incident. Such an incident might be a patient acting out or a patient being injured.

Here's how juvenile counselors use incident reports:

Administered medication, completed incident reports, and daily documentation.
Prepared written behavioral incident reports.

9. Detention Facility

Here's how juvenile counselors use detention facility:

Supervised juvenile offenders within a detention facility who were detained as a result of a delinquent offense.
Counseled adolescent youth in Horizon Juvenile Detention Facility.

10. Behavior Patterns

Here's how juvenile counselors use behavior patterns:

Interviewed parents, teachers and counselors while investigating the behavior patterns, academics and social skills of the juvenile.

11. Community Resources

Community resources are a set of resources that are used in the day to day life of people which improves their lifestyle in some way. People, sites or houses, and population assistance can come under the services offered by community resources.

Here's how juvenile counselors use community resources:

Court advocacy, individual and Family Counseling, Integrator of Services, Community Liaison, Integrator of community resources
Recruited and evaluated community resources to determine their viability for youth workshops and presentations

12. Law Enforcement

Law enforcement is the task of certain members of the community who work together to uphold the law by identifying, preventing, rehabilitating, or prosecuting others who break society's laws and norms. The phrase refers to the police, the judiciary, and the correctional system.

Here's how juvenile counselors use law enforcement:

Maintain frequent contact with court personnel, law enforcement, schools and other professionals for treatment planning and case management.
Worked closely with law enforcement, District Attorney's Office, and other agencies in the community.

13. Court Orders

Here's how juvenile counselors use court orders:

Supervised adjudicated undisciplined and delinquent juveniles to provide supportive counseling and to assure compliance with court ordered dispositions.
Supervised adjudicated juveniles, enforced court orders, provided counseling to juveniles and families.

14. Group Sessions

Here's how juvenile counselors use group sessions:

Presided over formal and informal group sessions and orientation classes, life skills and work crews.
Counseled clients individually and in group sessions to assist them adjusting mainstream life.

15. Medical Appointments

A medical appointment is a scheduled / specific day and time for a person to be examined or treated by a physician, nurse, or other licensed healthcare professional. The aim of the medical appointment is for the physician to be able to identify health problems or illnesses at an early stage.

Here's how juvenile counselors use medical appointments:

Transported clients to school and medical appointments.
Accompany individuals on all medical appointments and acted as a supportive advocate for the individuals with any medical discussions.

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What skills help Juvenile Counselors find jobs?

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What skills stand out on juvenile counselor resumes?

Grace Palmisano

Lancaster Bible College

For those seeking mental health fields, skills that stand out on resumes: possess strong self-awareness and emotional stability, critical thinking, interpersonal/relational skills, communication skills, problem-solving, creativity, and genuine interest and concern for humanity. Some of these skills can be developed, but other skills are a "must-have" even before entering into the field of mental health as one is working with all kinds of people. Carl Rogers shares that counselors ought to possess and demonstrate qualities of unconditional positive regard, empathy, and congruency. These are essential ingredients that make a therapist effective in the field and helps build therapeutic alliance. More importantly what clients innately want in therapy is not just a "clinical expert" but a human being who relates and understands them as a human person.

What soft skills should all juvenile counselors possess?

Dr. Benjamin Jeppsen

Associate Professor, Augustana University

Cultural awareness, knowledge, and skills are important, including openness to work with people with varying religious views. The ability to easily connect with others and put people at ease in your presence is valuable in working with clients and collaborating with a treatment team. As more and more agencies interact with the medical field, spiritual leaders, and other holistic approaches to health, counselors need to see their role in an interdisciplinary approach to healing and work effectively with other departments. With teletherapy/virtual therapy, just the simple difficulty of creating eye contact when one's camera is not directly aligned with their viewscreen can complicate important connections in the therapeutic relationship. Learning to effectively connect through screens is essential.

What hard/technical skills are most important for juvenile counselors?

Treniece Lewis Harris Ph.D.

Associate Professor of the Practice, Program Director, Master's Program in Mental Health Counseling, Boston College

-Differential diagnosis to determine whether a person is experiencing an adjustment problem related to everyday life stressors or mental illness
-Knowledge and application of developmental and personality theory to human behavior.
-Experience in using multiple evidence-based psychotherapy models
-Psychological assessment, especially in neuropsychological testing
-Research design and implementation to study
-Program development
-Curriculum design and teaching skills

What juvenile counselor skills would you recommend for someone trying to advance their career?

Dr. Emily Goodman-Scott Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Assistant Chair, Graduate Program Director, and School Counseling Coordinator, Old Dominion University

Getting experience working/volunteering in schools, and other capacities working/volunteering with youth: learn the culture of education, build rapport and be in relationship with youth and their families.

What type of skills will young juvenile counselors need?

Samantha Fletcher Ph.D.

Executive Director, National Association of Social Workers, New York State

The core skills of social work do not change over time. These skills include empathy, active listening, critical thinking, assessment, intervention, evaluation, advocacy, policy analysis, and adaptability. Social workers also need to evaluate the organizations they work in to assess for oppressive practices and policies. One of the profession's core values is social justice, which directs social workers to "pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers' social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice" (National Association of Social Workers, 2017). As a profession, social workers aim to dismantle racist, sexist, heterosexist, xenophobic, ableist, classist, and religiously biased systems and structures.

What technical skills for a juvenile counselor stand out to employers?

Dr. Abby Templer Rodrigues Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Sociology, Missouri State University

Employers look for oral and written communication skills, the ability to work effectively in diverse teams, analytical and quantitative reasoning, and the ability to adapt to new technologies (Ciabattari et al. 2018). Employers specifically prefer college graduates who have experience applying these skills through internships, service learning, senior projects or collaborative research, field projects, or study abroad (Ciabattari et al. 2018).

References

Ciabattari Teresa, Lowney Kathleen S., Monson Renee A., Senter Mary Scheuer, and Chin
Jeffrey. 2018. "Linking Sociology Majors to Labor Market Success." Teaching Sociology 46 (3): 191-207.
Handwerker, Elizabeth Weber, Peter B. Meyer, and Joseph Piacentini. 2020. "Employment
Recovery in the Wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic." Monthly Labor Review, December, 1-24.
Langin, Katie. 2020. "U.S. faculty job market tanks." Science 370(6514): 272-273.

Do you want to know more?

List of juvenile counselor skills to add to your resume

The most important skills for a juvenile counselor resume and required skills for a juvenile counselor to have include:

Behavioral Issues
Rehabilitation
Mental Health
Crisis Intervention
Substance Abuse
Direct Care
Direct Supervision
Incident Reports
Detention Facility
Behavior Patterns
Community Resources
Law Enforcement
Court Orders
Group Sessions
Medical Appointments

Crisis Situations
Group Therapy
Residential Placement
Human Service Agencies
Behavioral Problems
CPR
Delinquent Youth
Juvenile Offenders
Security Checks
Court Reports
Risk Youth
Support Services
Role Model
Anger Management
Court Hearings

Community Agencies
Conflict Resolution
Risk Assessments
External Resources
Social Service Agencies
Conduct Searches
Assessment Services
Security Procedures
Court Appearances
de-Escalation Techniques
Observation Reports
Emergency Situations
Juvenile Court System
Court Proceedings
District Court

Updated January 8, 2025

Zippia Team

Editorial Staff

The Zippia Research Team has spent countless hours reviewing resumes, job postings, and government data to determine what goes into getting a job in each phase of life. Professional writers and data scientists comprise the Zippia Research Team.

Updated January 8, 2025

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