This study investigated the effects of an experimenter-designed cross-cultural training program on counsellor empathic response, attending behaviour and level of anxiety during interviews with a culturally dissimilar client. A review of the literature indicates that counsellor effectiveness and level of anxiety may be affected when a client is perceived as culturally dissimilar. Research documenting the success of cross-cultural training as a method of increasing counsellor effectiveness during live client interviews is meager. / Thirty-one white graduate students in counselling participated in this research. Counsellor trainees were randomly assigned to treatment/no-treatment conditions. Following the 11-hour treatment program, all 31 counsellors conducted videotaped interviews with one black and one white female coached client. Trained judges who maintained an interrater agreement of .87 rated excerpts of the counsellors' performance on the empathy and attending behaviour variables; a self-report measure of anxiety was employed. / The overall results of the multivariate analysis of variance indicated no significant difference between treatment and control groups when the three dependent variables were considered as a set. However, the univariate analysis was significant for levels of anxiety during interviews with the black client (p = .01114); counsellors in the treatment group experienced lower levels of anxiety than those in the control group. Modest gains in empathy resulted from crosscultural training. A significant correlation was found between empathy and attending behaviour (p = .0001). / Implications for the cross-cultural training of counsellors are discussed. The mixed findings of this study indicate the need for further research in this area.

A discrepancy between the number of predoctoral internship applicants and Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers' internship positions has recently been noted (Gloria & Robinson, 1994; Murray, 1996). Applicants now outnumber positions available. This imbalance has caused researchers (e.g., Lopez, Moberly, & Oehlert, 1995) to focus on criteria affecting selection decisions. Researchers, who have relied strictly on non-experimental methodology, have ascertained that important and consistent criteria for intern selectors are breadth and types of clinical experiences, performance during interviews, and letters of recommendation.A criteria that was not specifically addressed in earlier surveys of intern selectors was doctoral program type (i.e. clinical, counseling, and school psychology). Interestingly, doctoral program type had been hypothesized by Gayer and Gridley (1995) to have a significant impact on intern selection decisions, such that a preference pattern would emerge with clinical applicants preferred over counseling applicants, and counseling applicants preferred over school applicants. This pattern was hypothesized to occur even if application materials from the three doctoral program types were identical. The present study, in the form of an experimental survey utilizing analogue techniques, was developed to test the aforementioned hypothesis. Results confirmed that doctoral program type has a statistically significant, moderate influence on intern screening/selection and that the hypothesized preference patterns pervasively exist across a variety of selector (e.g., gender and doctoral program type attended) and setting (e.g., geographic location, site type, population density in the site's locale, and socioeconomic status of a site's clientele) variables. Implications of this preference pattern and recommendations for applicants, trainers, and selectors are discussed. / Department of Educational Psychology

Substance abuse is a prevalent occurrence among adolescents. A review of the literature revealed that adolescent substance abuse has a strong connection to their academic performance. School counselors address adolescents' academic and personal/social needs by providing services through prevention education, responsive services, and collaboration with community members. Yet, there is a dearth of literature as to whether pre-service school counselors are prepared to deal with substance abuse issues. The purpose of this study was to evaluate pre-service substance abuse training provided in CACREP accredited school counseling programs. The instrument utilized was entitled School Counselor Pre-Service Preparation in Grief/Loss and Substance Abuse Counseling. The survey included three questions concerning substance abuse training for pre-service school counselors and three questions concerning Grief/Loss training. The substance abuse questions and data were utilized for this particular study. The surveys were mailed to a total of 150 CACREP accredited school counseling programs, and 79 programs responded to the survey, resulting in a response rate of 53 percent. The results revealed that the majority of CACREP accredited programs in this study offered substance abuse training through either required or elective coursework. Limitations of the study, implications for CACREP accredited programs, and recommendations for future research are also discussed. / Graduation date: 2004

Thesis (MTech (Education))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2006 / A uniquely African framework for training community counsellors is urgently required to address the range and impact of contemporary community counselling needs in Africa. Training methodologies utilised in Christian higher education throughout Africa shoulddynamically reflect on the socio-cultural context in order to gain a regional understanding of community counselling needs and apply distinctively regional interventions. This study has found that a limited number of Christian higher education institutions in Africa is actively engaged in undergraduate training of community counsellors - primarily in the sphere of Christian counselling. At the same time, the range and severity of community mental health needs is accelerating rapidly, requiring a new generation of community counsellors who have received relevant and effective regional training at an undergraduate level of study. Presently, amongst those institutions where such training is provided, the emphasis within the curriculum has revealed a marked bias towards western knowledge constructs and values - particularly in parts of Africa where European influences are so strong. The study reveals that psychosocial phenomena as experienced in the context of developed societies of Europe and North America have questionable relevance to the distinctive regional challenges facing Africans today. This study presents a case for Christian higher education in Africa to adopt a uniquely African framework for training community counsellors to address the range and impact of contemporary community mental health needs. The study has explored a curriculum development process that dynamically reflects on the socio-cultural context in order to gain a regional understanding of community mental health needs to ensure that community counsellors are provided with effective intervention skills. A unique strategy for integrating the outcomes of such a community assessment into a relevant curriculum design is presented. This strategy comprises a four-step community assessment model utilising focus groups to investigate the range and severity of counselling needs in communities throughout the Great Lakes region (Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Burundi). The results of this community assessment provide guidelines intended to assist Christian higher education in this regional selling to re-curriculate existing undergraduate curricula in community counsellor training and to develop new curricula. The author demonstrates how lessons learned from conducting one such regional study can be meaningfully applied to other regions on the African sub-continent. The global relevance of this study is reflected in the interface between the 'bio ecological systems theory' of Uri Bronfenbrenner (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and the pedagogic paradigm developed in this study. Both emphasise the vital importance of exploring and understanding socio-cultural frameworks if training methodologies are to be psychologically and culturally valid.

M.A. (Counselling Psychology) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

This study was designed to determine how institutions accredited by the Council for the Accreditation of Counseling and Related Educational Programs (CACREP) meet the practicum requirements set forth in CACREP's 2001 standards. Practicum is a vital part of the matriculation process of counselors in training. This clinical based course allows students to practice the skills they have learned in previous, more didactic based courses. Trainees can stretch skills, all under the watch of a counselor supervisor with greater experience. Although CACREP instructs all accredited counseling programs to have such a course in place, the standards are not specific. Schools are often interpreting the standards in a multitude of ways, presumably to successfully meet the standards while still serving the student as well as the clientele who seek out mental health assistance (Pitts, 1992a). The purpose of this study was to determine what measures CACREP accredited institutions enact to meet the clinical practicum standards. The difference between this study and prior research that has addressed the practicum requirement is that the instrument used in this study specifically addressed every CACREP practicum standard, including technology, diversity, and concerns with supervision and meeting the direct client contact hour requirement. The results of the study showed that most programs do indeed meet the standards that have been set by CACREP. However, the way that these are met varies greatly from school to school. In addition, some schools have incorporated innovative practices that could be beneficial to both schools looking to gain accreditation and ones that are attempting to modify existing practices.

The Council for Accreditation of Counseling and Related Education Programs (CACREP) is the accrediting body for the field of counselor education. Since the inception of the standards, several individuals have published journal articles reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of CACREP accreditation. The purpose of this study was to do a preliminary survey of the opinions of individuals within CACREP accredited programs to discover the effects of accreditation on programs. The survey of opinions from respondent CACREP accredited programs indicated interesting results. The eleven frequently held beliefs about improvements after accreditation was substantiated by the number, the percentage, and the Chi Square results from respondent programs. Therefore, after CACREP accreditation, most programs reported the opinion that: students have higher grade point averages and test scores; students are younger, learn better, and receive more employment opportunities; a higher percentage of students pass the licensed professional counselor examination; average scores are higher on the nationally certified counselor examination; programs receive more applicants and faculty is more professionally active, publishes more, and presents more. The second part of the survey indicated that a large percentage of respondent programs offer courses beyond the CACREP core curriculum experiences (91%) and that a variety of courses are offered (78 courses). In addition, 91 respondent programs indicated that courses are required beyond the CACREP core curriculum experiences and that a variety of courses are required (29 courses). Three primary limitations exist in this study. First, the eleven frequently held beliefs were marked by the opinion of one faculty member for each program. Second, the number of blanks for each item was frequently close to or sometimes exceeded the number of respondents who marked the after CACREP column. Third, the survey data collected on courses that were offered by programs beyond the core were based upon memory and/or opinion and may be inaccurate. A recommendation for future research would be to study the hard data collected prior to and after accreditation.

No description available.

Text in Afrikaans / This study was aimed at the development of a multicultural counselling model for tertiary education with the emphasis on experiential learning and integration on all levels. Although the South African Qualifications Authority (SAQA) is prescriptive about the outcomes concerning multicultural involvement it does not clearly prescribe experiential learning - causing educational institutions to underplay experiential learning. Ignorance exists about multiculturalism in training programmes. Educational institutions often implement programmes randomly without proper consideration of the multicultural needs of the student population. People from different cultures often experience the caregiver as having little understanding and respect for diverse cultures, often leading to the early termination and inaccessibility of professional services. To provide guidelines to educational institutions about multicultural counselling training, the researcher provided a paradigmatic perspective as foundation to the drafting of a counselling model for training. The Grounded Theory was used to obtain scientifically based information about the multicultural counselling training phenomenon in South Africa as well as the development of a multicultural counselling model for tertiary education. People in professional services were interviewed and compared to literature, whereafter all applicable concepts, principles, processes and elements grounded in the paradigmatic perspective were examined, identified and coded as components of the multicultural counselling model, with the aid of a core category, categories and subcategories. Henceforth a multicultural counselling model for training was developed. The central thesis of the research is that the multicultural counsellor has certain skills that stem from the training received at South African educational institutions, which does not necessarily encompass the concept of multiculturalism. It therefore does not equip the student to successfully help patients from a diverse culture. This problem can be intercepted through a training model with appropriate components of multiculturalism in the curriculum of educational institutions in South Africa. Conclusions and recommendations were made according to the Grounded Theory. The findings of the scientific procedure were evaluated according to reliability as well as the criteria of Chinn en Kramer (1991). Answers were obtained through scientific reasoning and empirical research to produce a model for the implementation of multicultural training within the context of South African educational institutions. / Social Work / D. Diac. (Play Therapy)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the initial on-site supervision experience of school counseling interns. Current counseling supervision research has failed to address dynamics specific to the context of school counselor training and professional development. This gap in the research suggest that examining the phenomenological experience of what constitutes school counselor trainee growth in the context of on-site counseling supervision was worthwhile. An emergent qualitative research design was utilized to clarify and elaborate on data while pursuing lines of inquiry grounded in the experience of three school counseling supervisory dyads (supervisee-supervisor), a university internship supervisor, two additional supervisees, and three additional supervisors. During the course of an academic school counseling internship experience, data was collected through multiple taped on-site school counseling supervision process observations, participant semi-structured interviews, and reflective participant and researcher journals. Utilizing a constant comparative method of data analysis, results indicated an emerging model of on-site school counseling supervision which, (a) progressed sequentially through a series of four developmental phases (contextual orientation, establishing trust, conceptual development, and clinical independence), (b) focused on twelve dimensions of supervises learning specific to each phase of development (contextual urgency, site disparity, ethical awareness, accessibility, support, collegiality, thematic observations, reflective modeling, illustrative examples, self assessment, self generation, and professional risk taking), and (c) illustrated a reflective cycle of supervisor-supervisee interaction focused on the supervisee transforming dissonant internship counseling experiences into professional schemas. Presented as an emergent model and specific to the investigated context, the results suggest that developmental principles of counseling supervision are applicable to school counseling, and that the supervision relationship illustrated pedagogical interventions and processes congruent with reflective learning theory. It is recommended that counselor education programs provide preliminary exposure to the school counseling context and relevant counseling models while maintaining ongoing follow-up and support with on-site school counseling supervisors. Furthermore, research is needed to more fully examine instructional strategies in the context of school counselor preparation and on-site supervision. / Graduation date: 1998