DIASS - Roles, Resposibilities of Counselors

Professionals and
practitioners in counseling
Objectives:
• Recognize the roles and functions of counselors.
• Identify the specific work areas where counselors work.
• Identify career opportunities for counselors.
• Identify the rights, responsibilities, and accountabilities of counselors.
• Distinguish the ethical from the unethical behaviors among
counselors.
Roles and functions of counselors.
Who
How When
Counselors
Where What
Counseling
• It is a process and a relationship between the client(s) and counselor.
• The role of counselors includes the teaching of social skills, effective
communication, spiritual guidance, decision-making, and career
choices.
• A counselor’s role may sometimes include aiding one in coping with a
crisis.
Functions of Counselors
• helping a client develop potentials to the fullest
• helping a client plan to utilize his or her potentials to the fullest
• helping a client plan his or her future in accordance with his or her
abilities, interests, and needs
• sharing and applying knowledge related to counseling such as
counseling theories, tools, and techniques
• administering a wide range of human development services
Competencies of Guidance Counselors
• Counselors have the ability to administer and maintain career
guidance and counseling programs.
• They are capable of properly guiding the students toward becoming
productive and contributing individuals through informed career
choices with reference to appropriate stakeholders.
Competencies of Guidance Counselors
• They are capable of designing and implementing programs that
expose students to the world and value of work and guide, provide,
and equip the students with the necessary life skills and values.
• They can administer career advocacy activities.
• Guidance counselors are capable career advocates.
• Guidance counselors can facilitate conduct of career advocacy in
collaboration with career advocates and peer facilitators.
Other Competencies that Apply to the
Broader Counseling Work:
• Attending and listening – attending and listening skills refer to active
listening, which means listening with purpose and responding in such a
way that clients are aware that they have both been heard and
understood.
• Reflective skills – these skills are concerned with the other person’s frame
of reference. For Culley and Bond (2004), reflective skills ‘capture’ what
the client is saying and plays it back to them – but in the counselor’s own
words. The key skills are restating, paraphrasing, and summarizing.
• Probing skills – these skills facilitate going deeper, asking more directed
or leading questions.
Culley and Bond (2004)
Areas of Specialization where Counselors
Work
1. Child development and counseling – includes parent education,
preschool counseling, early childhood education, child counseling in
mental health agencies, and counseling with battered and abused
children and their families.
2. Adolescent development and counseling – covers middle and high
school counseling, psychological education, career development
specialist, adolescent counseling in mental health agencies, youth
work in a residential facility, and youth probation officer.
Work
3. Gerontology – includes counseling of older citizens: pre-retirement
counseling, community centers, nursing home counseling, and
hospice work.
4. Marital relationship counseling – includes premarital counseling,
marriage counseling, family counseling, divorce mediation.
5. Health – offers possibility for nutrition counseling, exercise and
health education, rehabilitation counseling, stress management
counseling, holistic health counseling, and genetic counseling.
Work
6. Career/lifestyle – includes guidance on choices and decision-
making pertaining to career or lifestyle; guidance on career
development; provision of educational and occupational
information to clients; provision of various forms of educational and
occupational information to clients, and may also include provision
of needed skills in managing or going through job interviews.
7. College and university – college student counseling, student
personnel work, residential hall or dormitory counselor, and
counselor educator.
Work
8. Drugs – covers substance abuse counseling, alcohol counseling, drug
counseling, stop smoking program manager, and crisis intervention counseling.
9. Consultation – covers agency and corporate consulting, organizational
development director, industrial psychology specialist, and training manager.
10. Business and industry – include training and development personnel, quality
and work-life or quality circles manager, employee assistance programs
manager, employee career development officer, or equal opportunity
specialist.
11. Other specialties – may include phobia counseling, self-management,
intrapersonal management, intrapersonal management, and grief counseling.
Career Opportunities for Counselors
1. Educational and school counselors
2. Vocational or career counselors
3. Marriage and family counselors
4. Addictions and behavioral counselors
5. Mental health counselors
6. Rehabilitation counselors
7. Genetics counselors
If given a chance,
which specific work
areas would you
like to work? Why?
Rights, Responsibilities, and
Accountabilities of Counselors
• They are responsible for the practice of their profession in accordance
with their mandates and professional guidelines and ethics.
• They are accountable to their clients, the professional body, and the
government.
• It is critical that the counselor and the client fully understand the
nature of the concerns, which leads to a contract to take action on a
mutually agreed upon problem.
Code of Ethics of Counselors
• As in all professional practices in applied social sciences, counselors
must observe confidentiality at all times. Without confidentiality,
clients cannot trust the counselors and therefore make the profession
impossible to practice.
• The code of ethics also states that counselors live and work in
accordance with the professional standards of conduct set forth for
the practice of guidance and counseling. They should be people of
high moral standing.
Four Overall Ethical Principles
that Subsume a Number of
Specific Ethical Standards:
Principle 1: Respect for the rights and dignity of the client
• Guidance counselors honor and promote the fundamental rights,

moral and cultural values, dignity, and worth of clients. They respect
clients’ rights to privacy, confidentiality, self-determination and
autonomy, consistent with the law.
Principle 2: Competence
• Guidance counselors maintain and update their professional skills.
They recognize the limits of their expertise, engage in self-care, and
seek support and supervision to maintain the standard of their work.
They offer only those services for which they are qualified by
education, training, and experience.
Principle 3: Responsibility
• Guidance counselors are aware of their professional responsibility to
act in a trustworthy, reputable, and accountable manner toward
clients, colleagues, and the community in which they work and live.
They avoid doing harm, take responsibility for their professional
actions; and adopt a systematic approach to resolving ethical
dilemmas.
Principle 4: Integrity
• Guidance counselors seek to promote integrity in their practice. They
represent themselves accurately and treat others with honesty,
straightforwardness, and fairness. They deal actively with conflicts of
interest,avoid exploiting others, and are alert to inappropriate
behavior on the part of colleagues.
• The Code of Ethics goes into specifics to detail professional behavior
from respect for fundamental rights, moral and cultural values, dignity
and worth of clients to respect for rights to privacy, confidentiality,
self-determination and autonomy, consistent with the law, and
ensuring that the client understands and consents to whatever
professional action they propose.
• Hence, Codes define parameters for general respect, privacy and
confidentiality, informed consent and freedom of consent, and
recognition of limits of competence.
• What is the significance of Code of Ethics in a profession?
• What are the examples of ethical and unethical behaviour of a
professional counselor?
What if you are a counselor and you have fallen in love with your client
and your client has also fallen in love with you. Since, it is unethical to
pursue the relationship, you will have to quit your job. However, your
job is also important to you. What will your decision be?
What if the counselor, in his/her conversation with the client, found out
that the client accidentally killed a person, will you report the client to
police or not?

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Professionals and

• Guidance counselors honor and promote the fundamental rights,

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