Foundations of Guidance and Counseling PDF

## FOUNDATIONS OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING ### FOUNDATIONS OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING **GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING** Guidance & Counseling is a profession that involves the use of an integrated approach to the development of a well-functioning individual primarily by helping him/her utilize his/her p...

## FOUNDATIONS OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING ### FOUNDATIONS OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING **GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING** Guidance & Counseling is a profession that involves the use of an integrated approach to the development of a well-functioning individual primarily by helping him/her utilize his/her potential to the fullest and plan his/her future in accordance with his/her abilities, interest, and needs. It includes functions such as counseling, psychological testing (as to personality, career, interest, study, orientation, mental ability, aptitude), research, placement, group process, teaching and practicing of guidance and counseling subjects particularly subjects given in the licensure examinations, and other human development services. (Rules & Regulations of RA 9258). **BASIC PRINCIPLES OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING** * Personal motives for altruism * Making a difference in others' lives * Has a natural talent for empathy * You get to learn more about people * You help yourself by helping others Guidance and counseling are matching concepts. But, these are two different things Guidance is broader, and Counseling is a part of the guidance. **GUIDANCE** * Broader & comprehensive * More external * Helps a person understand alternative solutions * Mainly preventive and developmental **COUNSELING** * In-depth & narrow * Inward analysis * Alternative solutions are proposed * Remedial, as well as preventive & developmental **Intellectual attitudes** * Decision making is at an intellectual level **More emotional attitudes** * Operates at an emotional level **Generally education and career-related & may also be for personal problems** **Mostly offered for personal and social issues** The following tenets by Shertzer and Stone (1981) aim to establish parameters within which Guidance and Counseling operates, describe its primary mode of operation, and discuss the philosophical assumptions on which it tests. * Guidance is concerned primarily and systematically with the personal development of the individual. * The primary mode by which guidance is conducted lies in individual behavioral processes. * Guidance is oriented toward cooperation, not compulsion --- Hallmark: absence of coercion or pressure. * Humans have the capacity for self-development. * Guidance is based upon recognizing the dignity and worth of individuals as well as their right to choose. ---Core of freedom: self-determination. * Guidance is a continuous, sequential, educational process. **MEANING OF GUIDANCE** * Beginning of Guidance movement: Frank Parsons * Guidance involves personal help given by someone. It is designed to assist a person in deciding where he wants to go, what he wants to do, or how he can best accomplish his purpose, it assist him in solving problems that arise in his life. * Focus of Guidance is the individual, NOT the problem. * Purpose: to promote growth of the individual in self-direction. **DEFINITION OF GUIDANCE** * As a CONCEPT: mental image, helping an individual. * As an EDUCATIONAL CONSTRUCT: intellectual synthesis, provision of experiences that help pupils to understand themselves. * As an EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM: it refers to procedures, and processes organized to achieve certain educational and personal goals. **PURPOSE OF GUIDANCE** * Helping the individual to make wise choices * To develop the ability of each individual to take care of himself * To stand on his own feet and not be dependent upon others * To help individual achieve greater awareness not only of who they are but of who they can become. * Rogers: to enhance the personal development, the psychological growth toward a socialized maturity. * Smith: to provide facilitative experience for client on a "passionate-productive-compassion continuum. **ASSUMPTIONS OF GUIDANCE** * The differences in individuals in native capacity, abilities, and interests are significant. * Variations within the individual are significant. * Native abilities are not usually specialized. ­­­­­ * Race, color, and sex have little or no relation to aptitudes and abilities. * Many important crises cannot be successfully met by young people without assistance. * The school is in a strategic position to give the assistance needed. * Guidance is NOT prescriptive but aims at progressive ability for self-guidance. * The best counselor can be much more effective if he knows the basic facts about the individual. * Getting facts is not guidance. Guidance is a therapeutic process and is concerned with the adjustment of the individual; it begins with the first contact with the individual and ends only when the adjustment has been made or when the individual no longer needs help. **EDUCATION AND GUIDANCE** * Whenever in the learning process the teacher assists the learner to CHOOSE, guidance is present. * Not every form of assistance is guidance, it is only when the assistance is given directed toward helping the individual to make choices that guidance is present. * Guidance is found in the area of educational endeavor which involves assistance given by agencies or persons to the individual in making choices, in helping him to choose a line of action, a method of procedure, a goal. It is not choosing for him or directing his choice, it is helping him to make a choice. * Testing and test results, records, fundamental habits, skills are necessary for wise choices, but it is only when the teacher, counselor or other person uses these in a conscious effort to help the individual in his choices that guidance is present. * All guidance is education but some aspects of education are not guidance. * Guidance constitutes the central service aspect of personnel work. * Guidance involves all types of choices and must include within its scope the curriculum, teaching, supervision and other activities of the school **GUIDANCE SERVICES** 1. **Appraisal:** designed to collect, analyze, and use a variety of objective & subjective personal, psychological, and social data about pupils to achieve better understanding of pupils as well as assist them to understand themselves. 2. **Information:** designed to give students a greater knowledge of educational, vocational, & personal-social opportunities so that they may make informed choices and decisions in an increasingly complex society. 3. **Counseling:** designed to facilitate self-understanding and self-development through dyadic or small-group relationships. 4. **Consultation:** designed to give technical assistance to teachers, administration, and parents to help them to be more effective with students and to improve the school as an organization. 5. **Planning, Placement, & Follow-up:** designed to enhance the development of students by helping them select & utilize opportunities within the school and in the labor market. 6. **Evaluation:** designed to determine the effectiveness of the guidance program. **PHILOSOPHICAL POSITION FOR GUIDANCE** | THEORIST | ASSUMPTION| |---|---| | Williamson | General education tone; philosophy of instrumentalism to be congruent with the belief of guidance and personnel worker| | Paterson | Phenomenological model best described counseling theory; "individual freedom and action" | | Tyler | Existentialist approach to counseling; right and responsibility of each counselor to think through his own theories of therapy, philosophy, religion, and personal values orientation. | | Curran | Discovery of personal values by individual rather than imposition of social values | | Shoben | Personalism in counseling and client responsibility | | Mowrer | Mind-body problem | | Glanz | Identified the goals of guidance-personnel work with theories engaged in human relations and GD research. | | Arbuckle | Personal dignity of the individual | | Tyler | Playing of the strengths of the client, rather than to effect a major restructuring, is existentialist oriented | | Froehlich | Client must be more active in the counseling process, more self-directed, more self-determining | | Murphy and Gaze | Counseling interview as an encounter rather than as a teaching situation, a reflecting device, or an advice giving, interpretive endeavor. | | Fisher and Roth | Five generally accepted views of human behavior; reveal the structure necessary for guidance research | | Berger | Viewed counseling in the light of Buddhist concepts; finding some similarities in outlook | **5 Periods of Development of Guidance** | STAGES | DESCRIPTION | |---|---| | 1. Amorphous | Man could not always see his own problems clearly; "freeing man from trouble by letting out the demons that possessed him... Actual beginnings with Freud; catharsis | | 2. Prescriptive | Socio-cultural setting. Directive or clinical counselors. Testing movement. Instrumentalism-commitment to democracy, individual freedom, and pursuit of knowledge (best FITs guidance). The ultimate aim of guidance was aiding people to live fuller, more fruitful lives. | | 3. Non-directive | Guidance research. Potentiality of human being to solve his own problems of choice and adjustment; phenomenology | | 4. Phenomenological | Reconstruct an individual's field from his behavior and understand how fields change. Individual valuing. Pestalozzi: without the characteristic of love, one cannot really be a teacher, without the deepest understanding of what counseling is and can be, one cannot counsel better than superficially. | | 5. Daseinanalyse | It is a way of viewing the human condition which is immediately recognizable to every counselor on the level of feeling, if not on the level of cognition of terms. | **GUIDANCE SERVICES** **1. INDIVIDUAL INVENTORY** * Consists of all the information gathered about each individual in school. * Seeks systematically to identify the characteristics and potentials of every client. * Promotes the client's self-understanding, it also assists counselors and other helping professionals to understand client better. * The information is usually stored in a cumulative folder where the data accumulated about each student are kept while the student is still in school., and up to a few years after. * It includes the entrance test results and the information sheet of students. * Tests are a source of data, but more important than collecting data is using them. * Tests are not an end in themselves but an opportunity to develop a more complete picture of the client---a picture mutually shared by both the client and the counselor. * Cumulative records stay in the guidance office 10 years after the students have left school. * The IIS systematically collects, evaluates, and interprets data to identify the characteristics and potential of every client. The data can be used in proper diagnoses, predicting progress and behaviors, accurate placement, and program evaluation. * It enables the CLIENT to: * Develop a deeper, fuller self-awareness. * Create appropriate plans for improving the quality of his/her life based on this awareness and self-understanding. * It enables the COUNSELOR to: * Get to know the client * Facilitate the client's self-awareness, self-understanding and decision making * Ascertain appropriate avenues for clients to pursue * Determine the best options for helping the client * It gives the ADMINISTRATION and FACULTY an idea of the: * Assist significant others in understanding the client. * Profile of the school population * Appropriate strategies for responding to needs, interest and values. * Strengths and passion that can be channeled to appropriate goals. * PARENTS/GUARDIANS would have a basis for: * Understanding their client better. * Responding more sensibly to their children. **Cumulative Record Contents:** * **Personal Information:** age, family background and home environment, hobbies, interests, goals, values, personal strengths and personality traits and characteristics, problems and needs. * **Educational Data:** client's mental ability, aptitudes, and special strengths, schools attended, grades, co-curricular and extracurricular activities, courses taken. * **Health data** * **Social data** * **Personal information sheet** * **Anecdotal Reports:** descriptions of a client's unusual or unexpected behavior in a given situation or event. Such reports are subjective and descriptive in nature and recorded in narrative form. They often have three parts: (a) identifying data; (b) behavior observed; (c) comments of the observer. * **Anecdotal Record:** a summary of the anecdotal reports over the months/years can facilitate the discovery of patterns that aid in diagnosis and treatment. * **Rating Scales:** indicate the extent to which an individual possesses each of the characteristics or traits listed. * **Checklists:** typically designed to direct the observer's attention to specific observable personality traits and characteristics of an individual. * **Autobiography:** allows the writer to express what is important in his/her life, highlights likes and dislikes, identifies values, illustrates interests and aspirations, acknowledges successes and failures, describes fears and concerns, and brings to mind significant personal relationships. * **Self-expression Essay:** seeks the client's response, usually in a short written essay, to a particular question or concern. The object is to elicit spontaneous, uncensored response to topics relevant to the counseling needs of the client. * **Self-description Essay;** enables the counselor to see the client through his/her eyes. The client is free to share whatever he/she wishes to share about himself/herself. * **Diaries and Daily Schedules:** journals or diaries can be a rich source of information. Clients can be encouraged to write about their life encounters each day. A daily schedule is another technique for recording the client's daily activities. * **Questionnaires:** seeks to collect specific types of information on specific needs of the clientele, as well as identify problems, opinions, attitudes, or values. * **Structured Interviews:** enables the counselor to obtain specific information and to explore in-depth behavior or responses. Interview questions are designed with a goal in mind. * **Intake Interviews/Session Summaries:** intake interviews are initial interviews where the counselor collects information on the client's concerns, current status, and certain personal traits. * **Sociometric Techniques:** help to determine social relationships, such as degrees of acceptance, roles and interactions within groups. * **Class Work** * **Interview with Others** * **Test Results:** Intelligence, Multiple Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence Test, Aptitudes, Scholastic Aptitude, Achievement, Interests, Personality Tests. **2. INFORMATION SERVICE** * It is an activity whereby descriptive materials and media are accumulated, organized, disseminated through individual advising or counseling or through planned group activities. * Information is collected from the bigger environment outside the clients to enable them to make informed judgments. * Helps young people to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. * Will enable more individuals to realize their potentialities by becoming aware of their opportunities. * It is fundamental if students are to become or be self-regulatory * Enable decision-making to be rational * It stimulates freedom to improve individual choices * Fundamental if students are to explore and become aware of the contingencies of stability and change that mark their development. * Helps **CLIENTS** * Get a wide range of information from diverse sources. * Discover more possibilities than had already been though about. * Weigh the pros and cons of each possibility. * Make an informed decision on the matter at hand. * Helps **COUNSELORS** in that it * Provides a wide variety of information that counselors alone cannot give. * Extends information to a greater number of students even without individual contact. * Increases and updates the counselor's own knowledge as a basis for guiding clients. **Three Major Types of Information:** * **Personal-social** * **Academic-educational** * **Vocational-Occupational** **Uses of Information Services:** * **Assurance use:** information data may be used to assure that the student has confidence in the appropriateness of decisions. * **Evaluative Use:** information data may be used to check the accuracy or adequacy of student's knowledge and understanding of a decision. * **Exploratory Use:** information may be used to help students explore and study all the alternatives in making a decision. * **Information Use:** data are used to add to students' knowledge of occupations, choices, changing conditions and the like. * **Readjustive Use:** for students who have markedly inappropriate goals, information data may be used to help reorient them to different levels of goals or objectives. * **Synthesis Use:** information data may be related to other personal ata, such as test performance. This encourages the synthesis of a pattern of behavior. * **Verification Use:** information materials may be used by students to verify and clarify choices, opportunities and decisions. **Types of Information** * **A. Educational Information:** valid and useable data about all types of present and probable future educational or training opportunities and requirements, including curricular and co-curricular offerings, requirements for entrances, and conditions and problems of student life. * **B. Occupational Information:** valid and useable data about positions, jobs, and occupations, including duties, requirements for entrance, conditions of work, rewards offered, advancement pattern, existing and predicted supply of and demand for workers, and sources for further information * **C. Personal-Social Information:** deals with self-understanding and others. valid and useable data about the opportunities and influences of the human and physical environment that bear on personal and IPR. **Sources of Informational Material** * **Local sources** * **State/regional** * **National** **Classification of Information Materials** * **Vocational:** occupations, trends and outlook, legislation, special groups, job training, employment * **Educational:** status and trends, schools, colleges and universities, scholarships, fellowships, and loans **Major Vehicle of Information Dissemination** * **Printed Information Material** * **Small group guidance activities:** * Designed to provide information or experience to students in groups beyond those provided with the day-to-day learning activities in the classroom. * These activities are planned to provide information, orientation, and assistance in decision-making for the purpose of planning, personal development and adjustment. * These can be done with about 7-12 people with common needs or concerns. * Well-planned, systematically scheduled, appropriately conducted, and thoroughly evaluated activities provide opportunities to broaden clients' understanding of the subject or purpose for which the group is organized; and expand their understanding of group interactions and dynamics as well as their own behavior in groups. * **Homeroom Guidance/Classroom Guidance Activities:** * planned half hour to one hour sessions, have counselors as instructors, although planning can be done with faculty and students so that the substance of the instruction is based on specific needs of the population which the program is designed to serve. * Must have a rationale based on assessed needs which should be formulated into program goals and spelled out in the selected topics and activities. * School counselors are responsible for identifying the topics, gathering resource material, and preparing handouts in coordination with the students. Focused on the following four major areas: * Self-awareness and understanding * Social awareness and other orientation * Career awareness and planning * Leadership & citizenship * **Seminars/Symposia/Conferences:** topics can include anything educational-academic, social-personal, or occupational-vocational. **3. COUNSELING** * Counseling is the heart of the guidance program. * It is the counseling service that integrates all the data gathered about the individual and his/her environment in order for them to make sense. * It is the core activity to which all the other activities become meaningful. * The counselor interprets the data gathered about the individual and relates them to the information about the world outside the client in order to facilitate growth and adjustment, problem-solving and decision-making. * **Individual Counseling:** * One-one helping relationship that focuses on a person's growth and adjustment, problem-solving and decision-making needs. * Includes: counselor * Genuineness/congruence * Respect for the client * Empathic understanding of the client's internal frame of reference. * **Group Guidance** * Refers to group activities that focus on providing information or experiences through a planned and organized group activity. * E.g. orientation groups, career exploration groups, classroom guidance, college visitation days. * Content could include educational, vocational, personal, social information, with a goal of providing students with accurate information that will help them make more appropriate plans and life decisions. * **Group Counseling** * Routine adjustment or developmental experiences provided in a group setting * Focuses on assisting counselees to cope with their day-to-day adjustment and developmental concerns. * E.g. focus on behavior modification, IPR, human sexuality, values/attitudes, career decision-making. * **Career Guidance** * A person should have certain experiences and understanding at each stage of growth that will provide appropriate foundations for later career planning and decision-making. **Goals of Counseling** * **Developmental:** when clients are assisted in preparing for their anticipated human growth and development in the physical, personal, emotional, social, cognitive and spiritual dimensions, the goal of counseling may be developmental in nature. * **Preventive:** when clients are encountered at the time they are not experiencing any problem but are helped to avoid experiencing undesired outcomes, the goal may be preventive. * **Enhancement Goals:** when clients' encountered need is to be helped to identify, recognize and enhance unused or underused talents, skills and abilities, the goal may be enhancement. * **Exploratory:** when clients do not believe they have an existing problem but can benefit from examining options, testing skills, and trying new and different activities, environments, relationships, and so on, they can be helped to explore other pathways. * **Reinforcement Goals:** When clients are already taking action for resolving their concerns or already have a planned course of action when they come for counseling, the goal would be to help them recognize that what they are doing, thinking, and/or feeling may be oaky or may need some fine-tuning. * **Remedial Goals:** goals whereby clients are assisted to overcome or solve an already existing concern are called remedial. * **Human Dimensional Goals (Gibson)** * **Cognitive Goals:** these goals refer to the development of the intellect, and this is a concern mainly in schools. The focus would be the acquisition of the basic foundations of learning and cognitive skills. * **Psychological Goals:** these goals refer to the development of good intra and interpersonal skills: social/interaction skills, emotional control, self-esteem and the like. * **Physiological Goals:** these are the goals whereby clients are helped to develop the basic understanding and habits for good health, such as those done by fitness and diet counselors. * **Spiritual Goals:** helping individuals focus on internal processes within them which have to do with wholeness and inner peace constitutes the spiritual goals, whether this includes the relationship with God or not. **4. CONSULTATION** * Being the expert on how to respond to needs and behaviors, he/she may be sought by parents, teachers, administrators, or spouses for guidelines on how to deal with a person or situation. * A consultant is an individual with a special expertise, knowledge and skill in a specific area. Consultation requires the consultant to act as an adviser or enhancer. * A process for helping a client through a 3rd party or helping a system to improve its services to its clientele * Consultation is the activity engaged in by the individual when his/her expertise is requested by another party or organization, usually to enable the latter to assist another, a third party or an organization. **5. REFERRAL** * Referral refers to the assistance rendered to clients or significant others in obtaining services from other people or agencies that might be more effective in helping them. The practice of helping client find needed expert assistance that the referring counselor cannot provide. * The act of transferring an individual to another person/agency either within or outside the school. * Tools used: cumulative record, anecdotal record, observational report, and appraisal techniques. **Requirements of Referral Decision** * Judgment in determining the need and type of service required. * Knowledge of available specialists and services. * Skill in assisting students and their families to make use of referral services. **Types of Referral:** * Partial: the use of supplementary service while the counselor continues the original relationship. * Total: releases the client to another professional. **When to Refer?** * The counselor believes that he/she cannot be objective with the client. * The client believes he/she cannot work with the counselor. * Non-professional relationship has developed between client and counselor. * The needed attention/service is beyond the competency of the counselor. * The counselor is no longer available. * Specialized attention is needed by the client. **6. PLACEMENT** * Placement is ensuring that people are in the right place at the right time. * Considers goals, values, needs, interests and capabilities in helping clients find a niche for themselves. It provides clients with options, enables them to act on their choices, and helps them adjust to the chosen environment. * Emphasis on educational placement in courses and programs. **Types of Placement** * Personal-Social * Educational/Academic * Occupational/Career Placement **7. FOLLOW-UP** * Is a service extended to anyone is followed up to determine goal attainment and customer satisfaction? Follow-up services determine the status of the person who received assistance and what other assistance must be rendered so that the service is complete and holistic. Allows counselors to assess the effectiveness of a program's placement activities. **8. RESEARCH AND EVALUATION** * Counselor accountability is best proven through research and evaluation. * Research is a service-oriented activity conducted to discover new knowledge, to advance current knowledge, and to substantiate theory. Program evaluation is a program oriented activity that seeks to collect relevant information to determine whether program goals are met in terms of outcomes as basis for the modification of the delivery of services. * Research can provide empirically based data relevant to the ultimate goal of implementing effective counseling. * Evaluation: a means or process for assessing the effectiveness of the counselor's activity. * Accountability: establishes a basis for relevance, effectiveness and efficiency. **Approaches to Evaluation:** * **Elements of a Comprehensive Evaluative Process** * The objectives of the program, service or activity must be stated in observable behavioral terms * The activities/methods that are used to attain the objectives must be established. * Procedures must be developed to collect evidence as to whether the activities/methods result in the attainment of objectives. * **Approaches:** * **Survey Approach:** most frequently used * **survey method:** * selects predetermined criteria to inventory * collects evidence of the services being offered * makes judgments regarding he degree which these services are provided in reference to the predetermined criteria * usually focus on the intent and presence of certain services, the number of staff personnel, their qualifications, and use of time, physical facilities, and other external factors * **Experimental approach:** require carefully planned step to study one or more groups of individuals in terms of one or more variables. * **Case Study Approach:** designed to assess changes that take place in an individual as a result of introducing a variable, such as counseling. It emphasizes individuals and personal development. **HISTORY OF GUIDANCE & COUNSELING** **Guidance in the United States** * 1900-1909 * Jesse Davis- the first person to set up a systematized Guidance Program in the public school as Principal in Grand Rapids, Michigan. * Frank Parson- the father of Guidance, founded the Boston Vocational Bureau. * Clifford Beers- Started mental health counseling. * 1910-1919 * In 1913, the National Vocational Guidance Association was founded in Boston * National Vocation Guidance Magazine (1924-1933) * Personnel and Guidance Journal (1952-1984) * Journal of Counseling and Development * 1920's * Psychological Testing in World War I * Certification of Counselors in New York and Boston * Development of Standards for the Preparation of Occupational Materials * Strong Vocational Interest Inventory (1928)- Edward Kellog Strong Jr. * 1930's * The first theory of Counseling by Williamson and his colleagues at the University of Minnesota (Directive Counseling) * Thorndike challenges the vocational orientation of Guidance * Brewer published the book Education as Guidance (1932) * Publication of Dictionary of Occupational Titles (1939) * 1940's * Carl Rogers establishes Client Centered Counseling * Counselors were employed during World War II * Coinage of the term Counseling Psychology. * 1950's * Establishment of the American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA) * Establishment of Division 17 (Counseling Psychology) in the APA * The term Guidance was dropped. * 1960's * Proliferation of new counseling theories. * APGA publishes the Code of Ethics for Counselors (1961) which includes role definition and training standards of counseling psychologists. * Passage of the Community Health Center Act of 1963- employment of counselors outside the school setting. * 1970's * Community Counseling * State Licensure * Establishment of various counseling organizations under APGA. * APGA changes its name to American Association for Counseling and Development (AACD) * Brief counseling. **Guidance in the Philippines** * 1920's * Establishment of the first Guidance Program in Manila Schools * 1930's * Dr. Sinforoso Padilla founded the first Psychological Clinic (1932) at the University of the Philippines Diliman. * Appointment of Deans of Boys and Girls in Manila Schools focus on checking of attendance and student advising * 1940's * First Guidance Institute held at National Teacher's College. * 1950's * 1951 Joint Congressional Committee on Education defined the function of Guidance Counselors. * Function of Guidance Counselors: * Help students with developmental and vocational concerns. * Guide students in their work at home and in school. * Help them solve personal problems. * Assistance in job placement and work adjustment. * Provide information about the field of work. * 1960's * Establishment of the Psychological Association of the Philippines (PAP) governing body of Counseling Psychologist (1964) * Establishment of the Philippine Guidance and Personnel Association (PGPA) later the Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association (PGCA).. * 1980's * First call for the professionalization of Guidance Counseling at the 17th Annual Convention of PGPA (1981). * Senate Bill1146 was filed by Sen. Santanina Rasul "An Act to Regulate the Practice of Guidance Counseling, and to Create a Board for the Professional Practice of Guidance and Counseling * 2000's * RA 9258 "An Act Professionalizing the Practice of Guidance and Counseling and Creating for this purpose a Professional Regulatory Board of Guidance and Counseling, Appropriating Funds Therefore and Other Purposes" (2004) * Licensure of Counselor (2008) **GUIDANCE COUNSELOR** A Guidance Counselor is a natural person who has been registered and issued a valid certificate of registration and a valid personal identification card by the Professional Regulatory Board of Guidance and Counseling and the Professional Regulation Commission in accordance with this act and by virtue of specialized training, performs for a fee, salary, or other forms of compensation, the functions of guidance and counseling (RA 9258, 2004). **CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFECTIVE COUNSELOR** * Core Conditions * Warmth * Emphatic * Genuine * Nonjudgmental * Other Characteristics * Flexible * Well-organized * Objectivity * Multidimensional knowledge base and multiple areas or expertise. * Primary Tasks of a School Counselor * Counselor * Classroom Guidance * Consultant * Coordinator * Systems-Change Agent * Family Specialist * Collaborator **ETHICAL ISSUES:** * **Beneficence:** the counselor is working for the good of the client or the group * **Non-Maleficence:** "to do no harm" Refraining from actions that will harm clients: providing ineffective treatments and acting with malice towards clients * **Confidentiality:** the ethical principle or legal right of a counselor to keep secret information divulged by a client unless given permission to do so. * **Informed Consent:** legal and ethical term defined as the consent by a client to a proposed medical or psychotherapeutic procedure, or for participation in a research project or clinical study. In order for the consent to be informed the client must first achieve a clear understanding of the relevant facts, risk, benefits, and available alternatives involved. * **Dual Relationship:** when a counselor takes in as a client someone who is associated with him/her through family or professional relationships or by affinity * **Privileged Communication:** interaction between two parties in which the law recognizes a private, protected relationship. Whatever is communicated between parties shall remain confidential and the law cannot force disclosure of these communications.