Guidance and Counseling Services
There are different kinds of guidance services offered in Guidance Counseling, namely the counseling services, testing services, student inventory record services, training/seminar/forum services,placement and career services,research services,career and life planning services, freshmen enhancement program, orientation and information,referral,linkage,extension services and peer facilitation.
In counseling services considered as the “heart and Soul”of the guidance program.This service aims to assist students in gaining deeper self-understanding and awareness of one's problems. Counseling services have different approaches and services are individual counseling, group counseling, family counseling, and counseling special cases.
Second services are Testing. In many educational institutions as well as employment offices, test are probably the most widely used specialized techniques in guidance. These services cover the administration, scoring, interpreting and evaluating results of selected test such as Admission test, Intelligence test, Group Intelligence tests, Aptitude tests, Interest test, Personality tests, Projective tests and Special tests.
Next guidance services are Student Inventory Record. This services is a continuous process of accumulating, recording and utilizing information on each student for guidance counseling purposes and for obtaining a complete picture of a individual.
After Student Inventory Record, next services are Seminar/Training/Forum services. These are programs designed to help discover their innate ability and talents as well as develop their emotional intelligence. Symposium and forum are organized as information program to tackle important life issues like dating, love and marriage and natural family planning and gender issues and other relevant topic affecting the life of a person.
Next services is Placement and Career services. These services, graduating students are being prepared by the series of the career talks by expects in the different fields of occupational endeavor. They are coached on how to write an application letter, resume and development of self confidence in facing interview by the the prospective employer.
Research service is under guidance services. Research capabilities of the guidance center are conducted in conjunction with relevant educational studies like students delinquency problems, teenage pregnancy, faculty-student relationship and others. Next service is Career and Life Planning. Career development program is a package of activities designed to develop skills in self-exploration, values classification, career planning and decision making and life goal setting. In Freshmen Enhancement program. This service is package of activities for freshmen designed to facilitate adjustment into college life, enhance self-awareness and understanding and develop the basic skills in coping effectively with rigors of academic life.
Next service is orientation and information it consist of accumulation and dissemination of information about the different guidance activities.
Linkages and Extension Service. The guidance and counseling program also carry out collaborative activities with school and community-based organization. Guidance staff function and responsibilities go beyond the students. Lastly, Peer Facilitator services are trained to help staff in the delivery of the guidance services, as well as extension services.
"Among the different kinds of Guidance service, I must prefer the testing services because in here, you can determine the type of test that you want to take and you can identify your high standard and if you passed or failed the test, and you can determined easily the interest and type of of intelligence of your student. As we all know test provide information in meaningful terms through quantitative descriptions. Guidance and counselors may use different type of tests".
Current Trend and Issues in Guidance and Counseling
There are different kinds of Issues and Trend in the field of Guidance and Counseling ,Especially those Guidance and Counselor that are under or working as a school Counselor, there many issues that a Guidance Counselor is facing and need to resolve or not to totally resolve the issues or problem but to give an advice to those who are involve in the issues .A School Counselor have many duties than those who practiced a vocational guidance counselor. The duties of a school counselor is to assisting and preventing students from being involved with many difficulties and problems such as participating in a gangs, dropping out in school, becoming teenage parent or to have a baby at the young age, abusing and using drugs and participating in or becoming a victim or act of violence.
1Gangs. Students as early as third grades are being taught gang-type activities. Students are more likely to end up in a gang if family members and peers are already involved in gang activities.
2Teenage pregnancy. Teenage pregnancy continuous to be a societal concern. Precipitating factors are visible prior to the middle schools. Counselors are often the liaison with community agencies. That work to prevent student’s pregnancy and assist with students who do become pregnant.
3.Substance abuse. Drugs, including alcohol and tobacco continue to be a serious problem for youth.
4. School violence. School violence can range from bullying gunfire. Counselors have training to assist teachers and students in cases of violence and to establish violence prevention programs. Counselor’s leadership in making teasing and bullying unacceptable school behaviors is a powerful way to provide a safer and more inclusive environment for students.
5.diversity.tolerane of diversity is an important role in multi-cultural society.
6.Child abuse.many states have mandatory reporting laws concerning child abuse.
7.Terrorism.Terrorisim is becoming an increasingly difficult problem in the world.
"Among the different issues concerning in the school c ounseling,the early manage or being a teenage parent are the most common issue that a school counselor is facing.Especially to those in higher education or in college year".
Multicultural Counseling. ERIC Digest
Multiculturalism has been defined as the fourth force in psychology, one which complements the psychodynamic, behavioral and humanistic explanations of human behavior. Pedersen (1991) defined multiculturalism as "a wide range of multiple groups without grading, comparing, or ranking them as better or worse than one another and without denying the very distinct and complementary Locke (1990), among others, advocates a narrower definition of multiculturalism, particularly as it relates to counseling.
Hofstede (1984), identified four dimensions of cultures. These dimensions are:
2. Uncertainty avoidance--the extent to which members of a culture feel threatened by uncertain or ambiguous situations.
3. Individualism--a social framework in which people are supposed to take care of themselves and of their immediate families only.
4. Masculinity/Femininity--the extent to which the dominant values within a culture are assertiveness, money and things, caring for others, quality of life, and people.
A number of generic counselor characteristics are necessary, but not sufficient, for those who engage in multicultural counseling. To be effective, a counselor must be able to:
2. Feel and express empathy for culturally different clients.
3. Personalize his/her observations.
4. Withhold judgment and remain objective until one has enough information and an understanding of the world of the client.
5. Tolerate ambiguity.
6. Have patience and perseverance when unable to get things done immediately.
The effective counselor is one who can adapt the counseling models, theories, or techniques to the unique individual needs of each client. This skill requires that the counselor be able to see the client as both an individual and as a member of a particular cultural group. Multicultural counseling requires the recognition of: (1) the importance of racial/ethnic group membership on the socialization of the client; (2) the importance of and the uniqueness of the individual; (3) the presence of and place of values in the counseling process; and (4) the uniqueness of learning styles, vocational goals, and life purposes of clients, within the context of principles of democratic social justice (Locke, 1986).
The Multicultural Awareness Continuum (Locke, 1986) was designed to illustrate the areas of awareness through which a counselor must go in the process of counseling a culturally different client. The continuum is linear and the process is developmental, best understood as a lifelong process.
--Self-awareness. The first level through which counselors must pass is self-awareness. Self-understanding is a necessary condition before one begins the process of understanding others. --Awareness of one's own culture. Counselors bring cultural baggage to the counseling situation; baggages that may cause certain things to be taken for granted or create expectations about behaviors and manners.
--Awareness of racism, sexism, and poverty. Racism, sexism, and poverty are all aspects of a culture that must be understood from the perspective of how one views their effect both upon oneself and upon others.
Exploration of the issues of racism, sexism, and poverty may be facilitated by a "systems" approach. Such an exploration may lead to examination of the differences between individual behaviors and organizational behaviors, or what might be called the difference between personal prejudice and institutional prejudice. The influence of organizational prejudice can be seen in the attitudes and beliefs of the system in which the counselor works. Similarly, the awareness that frequently church memberships exist along racial lines, or that some social organizations restrict their membership to one sex, should help counselors come to grips with the organizational prejudice which they may be supporting solely on the basis of participation in a particular organization.
--Awareness of individual differences. One of the greatest pitfalls of the novice counselor is to over generalize things learned about a specific culture as therefore applicable to all members of the culture.
Total belief in individualism fails to take into account the "collective family-community" relationship which exists in many cultural groups. A real danger lies in the possibility that counselors may unwittingly discount cultural influences and subconsciously believe they understand the culturally different when, in fact, they view others from their own culture's point of view. In practice, what is put forth as a belief in individualism can become a disregard for any culturally specific behaviors that influence client behaviors. In sum, counselors must be aware of individual differences and come to believe in the uniqueness of the individual before moving to the level of awareness of other cultures.
--Awareness of other cultures. The four previously discussed levels of the continuum provide the background and foundation necessary for counselors to explore the varied dynamics of other cultural groups.
--Awareness of diversity. The culture of the United States has often been referred to as a "melting pot."
--Skills/Techniques. The final level on the continuum is to implement what has been learned about working with culturally different groups and add specific techniques to the repertoire of counseling skills.
Multicultural counseling is important to the counselors because they must know the differences or the cultures of their clients. there are four dimension of culture and a counselor must know them, because every individual must feel that they are belong to a culture.
Lastly of all the areas of awareness which the counselors should process in their counseling is the awareness of racism, sexism and poverty. because this issue is the most prominent of the country or in the culture, like in our country we face this kind of issue, so the guidance counselor must be aware of this issue, so that they can give a good counsel to their client.
Lastly of all the areas of awareness which the counselors should process in their counseling is the awareness of racism, sexism and poverty. because this issue is the most prominent of the country or in the culture, like in our country we face this kind of issue, so the guidance counselor must be aware of this issue, so that they can give a good counsel to their client.
