COUNSELOR

Counselor

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Employment Issues in Recruiting a Counselor4

Fitting the Post to a Scale5

The Recruitment Process5

Accountability and Confidentiality6

Relationships with Other Welfare Roles8

Conclusion10

Counselor

Introduction

Counseling is a unique mental health profession that is distinguishable from the other mental health professions including psychology, social work, psychiatry, and psychiatric nursing. Professional counselors practice in a variety of settings including hospitals, substance abuse treatment centers, schools, colleges, universities, private practice, rehabilitation facilities, community counseling agencies, court systems, and other settings in which counseling or other mental health services are offered. All professional counselors have essentially the same graduate education. The only differences among the preparation programs of professional counselors include some courses specific to the setting in which the individual counselor plans to practice and the practicum and internship placements. Professional counselors, despite their specialties and the locations of their practices, are more alike than they are different.

The counseling service which had previously been provided at the college had focused on two or three cases, referred to the counselor (then employed for two to three hours per week) by the welfare officer, on long-term contracts. These were students with serious psychological problems who required ongoing support. The problem with this approach was that, with increasing student numbers, the establishment of such long-term counseling resulted in the effective exclusion of students with equally serious cases; and that, for the students who did benefit from this form of counseling, their support suddenly dried up (or had to be privately funded) at the end of their three years' study. The service was inadequate in that it was not meeting the needs of all the students, and this could not be addressed simply in terms of additional resource (although this was also necessary) since this might indeed lead to the "bottomless pit" scenario. It was rather the appropriateness of the resource which needed to be tackled.

This was achieved through making the counselor a staff appointment (a move not without its own problems, as will be discussed below) and changing the emphasis of the counseling to short-term contracts with referral to appropriate bodies. A student who sees the counselor now is likely to be offered support for that term, or a period of about six to eight weeks. Liaison with the local medical practice occurs through weekly meetings, and cases which require referral through the GP to psychiatric care are identified and dealt with in total confidence. Referral to other agencies, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, has also been emphasized and utilized. While the college never tried to "solve" the students' problems before, a definite shift in responsibility for those problems has taken place, either towards the student or to appropriate medical care in the community. This ensures that continuity and long-term support, where needed, will be available when the student leaves college.

Employment Issues in Recruiting a Counselor

Appointing a counselor to the college staff on a full-time basis provided an enormous efficiency gain compared with contracting that service from outside. The provision of external support necessitated the payment of what were, in ...