◆ having a difficulty in resolving a specific problem
◆◆ noticing behavioural or ‘mood’ changes
◆◆ going through a life-changing event
◆◆ wanting to clarify their own views, values or position with a neutral observer.
In addition, those around them may think they could benefit from help and/or support when they are:
◆◆ not aware of the effect of their behaviour on others
◆◆ engaged in self-defeating behaviours
◆◆ not achieving their potential
◆◆ apparently unaware of the harm they are doing to themselves
◆◆ taking on additional responsibilities.
7
Settings – Anne Stokes
Many people are currently realising the value of including counselling skills within their repertoire as an aid to their main functional role, which may be in a paid or voluntary capacity. These helping contacts may have a developmental, problem solving, decision making, crisis or supportive focus at any given time (Nelson-Jones, 1983). Some of the dif-ficulties and ethical dilemmas involved in offering these contacts have been discussed in Chapter one but, despite these limitations, it is widely recognised that individuals can ben-efit from interventions from well-trained and well-developed professional skills users. A list of such professionals would include:
◆◆ prison visitors
◆
◆ religious leaders
◆◆ youth workers
◆◆ carers
◆◆ medical workers – doctors, nurses, speech therapists, physiotherapists, midwives, health visitors etc
◆◆ teachers and lecturers
◆
◆ line managers
◆◆ mentors
◆◆ human resource professionals
◆◆ drugs workers
◆
◆ AIDS workers.
COUNSELLING SKILLS IN CONTEXT 132
OCCUPATIONAL CONTEXTS
The next section looks specifically at the occupational contexts in which counselling skills might be applied. There may be a temptation to read only the part(s) that seem most related to your primary role or function. However, it may be useful to look at others to widen your general understanding and awareness.
Read this list again. Do you agree that all those on it could use counselling skills in some parts of their role? Who has not been included and ought to have been?
ACTIVITY
As you consider the following context(s), which seems the most appropriate to your cur-rent primary role? Write down all the job roles within that context where counselling skills could be used. At this stage, don’t think so globally that the exercise becomes meaning-less. There is an argument for everyone to receive counselling skills training, but this is not the purpose of the exercise! Once you have completed the task, share it with other people in your group, particularly those working in a similar context.
ACTIVITY
Education
Perhaps the most obvious roles in this context are those of teacher, lecturer or tutor, but there are many other workers who have contact with young people and their families within school, university or college settings. There are administrative staff, welfare sup-port teams, classroom assistants, as well as those employed in overseeing roles such as playground or ‘dinner’ staff. Anyone who has worked in this context will know that often it can be those people, who are not seen to be so involved in the formal business of teaching and learning, who become ‘the listening ear’ for many people. They are also fre-quently overlooked when budgets for counselling or interpersonal skills training are being allocated.
Any child or young person may have a reason for seeking out someone they can talk to about something that is troubling them, So adults in particular educational contexts may find that it is essential to develop counselling skills in order to be able to work effectively.
One example would be the area of special educational needs, whether that entails learning difficulties or behavioural problems, or both. This is often a source of anxiety to families as well as to the pupil involved. Not every family whose life is touched by disability needs sup-port. However, many welcome it. In writing about working with children with special edu-cational needs, Sandow and Stokes (1994) suggest that:
It is acknowledged that many teachers, when working with children and their families, feel that they are bordering on using therapeutic techniques. . . . Some of the techniques of the creative therapies may already be in use or hold an appeal for the classroom teacher.
(Sandow and Stokes, 1994)
They go on to say that, while recognising that there are no clear demarcation lines, and that training is not always necessary to help people, it is worth remembering that such interventions should be used with care. Training, and an understanding of boundaries and the ethical issues involved, can help teachers and others in this context to use counselling skills for the benefit of their students and their families.
Medical and health settings
In the nursing field, the work of community, mental health and practice-based nurses clearly benefits from employing counselling skills. If one thinks of hospital-based practice, then it is also easy to widen this to any nurse working with anxious or frightened patients and relatives. In writing this, there is an acknowledgement of the enormous pressures that nursing staff themselves are under, and many may feel that there simply is not time to engage with patients at more than a superficial level. However, the difference in climate, which is perceptible between units caring for the elderly, frail or the acutely ill where gen-uine listening is encouraged, and those where it is not, surely indicates that both staff and patient morale is higher in the former.
Until very recently doctors received scant training in counselling, or even interpersonal skills in most instances, as if somehow physical and affective dimensions were separable components of human beings. Fortunately that is changing, and GPs and consultants are
more likely to listen as well as to speak to their patients. Perhaps those who find this dif-ficult are inhibited by the fact that there may be times when they cannot offer practical or medical solutions and therefore feel that they are somehow inadequate or failing in their primary roles?
There are many other job functions in health settings where individuals do, or could, enhance their work by using counselling skills. These include the various therapists – occu-pational, speech and physiotherapists – as well as those working with specific medical con-ditions such as HIV and AIDS, where some, but not all, of the workers will have a medical background. As discussed in relation to the educational context, there are a number of sup-port roles where counselling skills might be used.
Workplace settings
This term is used to cover those who find that their work with colleagues (whether these are peers, those for whom there is a functional or line responsibility, or even occasionally those to whom they report within the structure) includes an element of support. Again there are the most evident categories, such as personnel or human resource practitioners and welfare staff, as well as a less well defined group, which could incorporate line man-agers, trade union officials, finance departments etc.
One of the myths in this setting is that people solely bring workplace issues to talk about;
those who have been involved in helping people will know that this is far from the truth.
Personal relationships, health matters, bereavement and difficulties with children are just a few of the wide spectrum of areas which employees may choose to speak to you about.
There is a debate about how appropriate this may be – this is work time, and you and they are being paid to do a particular job. My view is that very often what is going on outside work is likely to have a bearing on that person’s ability to perform well within work. If they need ongoing and regular support, you may not be in a position to offer that, and will need to consider how they might find this, but, certainly initially, it can be argued that it may be within your primary function to respond to them.
Social work settings
The training of most social workers will include a counselling skills element. Many find using these skills is an essential part of their work, and often seek further training in this area, to extend or update their knowledge and understanding. Probation officers would come into this category too.
Once more, there are the workers in this context who immediately spring to mind, and those who are more ‘hidden’. A major group of the latter are carers, who have regular and ongoing contact with clients. Their work is often of a practical nature; however, the relationship which is built up between themselves and their clients, and sometimes the physical intimacy of some of their tasks, can result in them being the recipient of an unbur-dening that can leave them feeling inadequate if they have not been trained to work with it in some way.
COUNSELLING SKILLS IN CONTEXT 134
An interesting and sometimes controversial debate has arisen around training prison offi-cers in counselling skills (and indeed in some instances as counsellors). This has centred on whether the enforcement of a prison regime can be consistent with the values of coun-selling. In other words, can someone who is responsible for ensuring the authoritarian and disciplinary side of prison life, also be able to be genuinely a listening ear? And even if they have the skills, is it possible for prisoners to be able to see them in this way? There is some evidence that it can happen, given the right training and policies. Pickard (2000) describes the training he offers to prison officers, and goes on to talk about the feedback he has had from prisoners.
The message was . . . (that) the most significant help that any of them received was the care shown by the prison officers. This care consisted of being given time to talk to someone who was prepared to listen and who genuinely showed an interest . . . I was amazed at the genuine respect and affec-tion for some of the officers.
(Pickard, 2000)
This has links to the next section, where prison officers might equally belong.
Legal and related settings
What to call this context has been a problem; it is to do with settings involving police offi-cers, solicitors, mediators, victim support workers etc. Police officers often employ coun-selling skills when interviewing crime witnesses, breaking bad news, supporting those who have been victims of an accident, and there is an ethical minefield here. When is it appro-priate to encourage people to talk about something which has happened, and when could it be perceived as manipulative in order to extract information which the speaker might later find they wish they had not given? If you are a police officer, you will need constantly to be aware of role boundaries, of the guidelines of your professional codes, and also per-haps refer back to the chapter on ethics.
Solicitors, particularly those involved in family law, may find themselves in a similar pos-ition. Clients may be distressed and the solicitor can offer them genuine and helpful sup-port through the use of effective counselling skills. One extra dimension here is that there is a financial cost involved – would the speaker have freely chosen to talk if they had in the forefront of their mind that solicitors’ fees may well be in the region of £120 per hour?
Yet in a law practice, time has to be fairly accounted for and costed directly to particular cases.
The role of a trained mediator is to enable parties involved in a legal issue, such as separ-ation or divorce, to find a resolution that is fair and acceptable to both sides. Part of the training will be about learning and appropriately using counselling skills. Both legal and non-legally trained individuals work together as mediators, and a crucial skill here is avoid-ing beavoid-ing drawn into sidavoid-ing with one party. (This is also a skill that may be necessary in other contexts where mediation, with a small ‘m’ is taking place.)
Religious settings
Even in this secular day and age, a priest, rabbi, religious leader will be available as a source of help and comfort to those with problems, both to do with issues of faith and those of a more worldly nature. The very nature of this profession can inspire people to confide as they feel that they can trust the discretion of the hearer. Dilemmas inevitably arise here about what role that person is in – is s/he a spiritual director and responsible for giving guidance, or simply a person whom the speaker trusts and who is therefore solely using counselling skills directed towards their autonomy?
There are many organisations that are connected directly or loosely with religious faiths.
Those working within them have to be clear with themselves and with their clients about the goal of working with counselling skills.
Voluntary settings
There are likely to be volunteers who are working in several of those settings just described, but since volunteers are a numerically large group of counselling skills users, and play such a vital part in the UK today, they merit a specific section. Some voluntary organisations train their own volunteers in counselling skills and, in particular, the necessary contextual knowledge to underpin work in bereavement counselling or counselling for drugs and alco-hol abuse. In some cases these people will be called ‘counsellors’ within the organisation.
Whether they are counsellors as defined in the first chapter, or people using counselling skills, will depend on the extent and depth of their training.
An example of an organisation that is largely made up of volunteers is the national net-work of Citizens Advice Bureaux (CAB). The CAB advisers will obviously meet clients who are in a wide range of affective states, including those who are, for example, angry, dis-tressed, frightened or despairing. While the adviser is there to give the information or advice that may help them to resolve the problem, it is apparent that counselling skills may be useful in getting clients to a position where they are able to give more of their atten-tion and energy directly to the issue. Advisers go through a basic training that involves demonstrating listening and empathic skills before they are able to work with clients in the bureau.
Other therapeutic settings
As the so-called alternative therapies move into a more central place in our society, many training courses in counselling skills are finding that practitioners are enrolling. Because a core philosophical understanding of the holistic nature of the person is central in many of these therapies, it is often found that such practitioners are ideal listeners as far as their clients are concerned and can help, if they possess the necessary skills and knowledge, in a way that was perhaps not initially envisaged.
COUNSELLING SKILLS IN CONTEXT 136
Situations in which counselling skills are used within job roles
The contexts in which counselling skills could be used have been discussed, but within those settings there are obviously specific situations where they might be appropriate. You will probably have begun to think about these as you worked through the last activity (p. 134). In the educational context, for example, there may be a bullying incident. It would be appropriate to use the skills to work with the person being bullied to enable them to express their feelings, to find out what coping strategies they can employ and also perhaps how to prevent it happening. The bully could also benefit from being given space to under-stand what is motivating them to behave in this way, to modify their behaviour and find more fitting ways of both interacting and getting their needs met. Here a clear distinction has to be made between a disciplinary function and a helping function; it may not always be useful for the same person to deal with each role. While in the long run the person who is doing the bullying probably has just as much need of help, unacceptable behaviour has to be stopped.
The example just described might equally apply in a workplace setting, but a different one would be that of an appraisal review meeting. All too often, line managers set the targets without really encouraging the team member to engage in the process. If counselling skills are used, realistic targets (though these are not necessarily lower or very different) can be set because the person who has to achieve them feels that they have been heard and enabled to look at what will help or hinder their achievement. The line manager may also discover skills that the organisation can use, but which they did not even know the employee possessed. In a survey of employees who had been made redundant by the organ-isation, BUPA discovered the vast array of skills that these ex-employees actually had had all the time.
This was very humbling because, having categorised all these people into one box . . . we had done nothing to unlock their potential, to see them as individuals and to think of them as special in any way . . . You say ‘where are the stars . . . that can grow my business for me’ . . . They already work for me but we don’t realise it.
(Platt, 1999)
This is a very clear argument to refute those who suggest that using counselling skills with people is for ‘soft and woolly’ reasons. Those using counselling skills can bring added value to their organisation, whether in the public, the private or the voluntary sector.
◆ Work in pairs. Describe to your partner your main job role, and then outline three different◆ situations that have benefitted , or could benefit from the use of counselling skills.
◆ During the next month, add to your list as you are involved in new situations.◆
◆ Read Chapter one again and reflect on the responsibilities that go alongside each of◆ the situations you have described.
ACTIVITY
RECORD KEEPING
Counselling skills users will have to make decisions about how and indeed whether they will keep notes of their interactions with clients. There is not a legal requirement to do so, though there are many good reasons why you may decide that you will do this. Counsellors are generally advised to do so unless there is a valid reason such as security that suggests otherwise, but the position is perhaps less straightforward with those who use counselling skills as an adjunct to their main functional role.
The Data Protection Act (1998), gives people the right to access information held about them on computers, and in some instances hand-written records. Therefore if records are being kept they should be written with that Act in mind, and processed according to the
The Data Protection Act (1998), gives people the right to access information held about them on computers, and in some instances hand-written records. Therefore if records are being kept they should be written with that Act in mind, and processed according to the