THE ROLES OF GUIDANCE COUNSELORS

Counseling is a process and a relationship between the clients and

counselor. The role of the counselor is to assist the person or
persons (clients) in realizing a change in behavior or attitude, to
assist them to seek achievement of goals, assist them to find
help, and in some cases, the role of counselors includes the
teaching of social skills, effective communication, spiritual
guidance,decision making, and career choices. A counselor's roles
may sometimes include aiding one in coping with a crisis. In some
settings, counseling includes premarital and marital counseling,
grief and loss,domestic violence and other types of abuse, special
counseling situations like terminal illness as well as counseling of
emotionally and mentally distrubed individuals.
 FUNCTIONS OF GUIDANCE COUNSELORS
The Philippine Republic Act No. 9258(Sec.2-3) defines
a guidance counselor as a natural person who has been
professionally registered and licensed by a legitimate
state entity and by virtue of specialized training to
perform the funtions of guidance and counseling. The
guidance counselor's functions include the use of an
integrated approach to develop a well-functioning
individual primarily through:
1.) Helping a client develop potentials to the fullest;
2.) Helping a client plan to utilize his or her potentials
to the fullest;
3.) Helping a client plan his or her future in accordance
with his or her abilities, interest, and needs.
4.) Sharing and applying knowledge related to
counseling such as counseling theories,tools and
techniques; and
5.) Administering a wide range of human development
sevices.
COMPETENCIES OF GUIDANCE COUNSELORS
Guidance 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 bureaus, relevant stakeholders, and
national programs, and in light of the available
opportunities in the community, the country, and
globally.
 Guidance counselors are capable career
advocates. They can conduct career advocacy
activities for seconadry-level students of the
schools in employment sites. They can collaborate
various government agencies, student
organizations, industry associations, guidance and
counselling associations, professional
associations, and other relevant stakeholders to
foster student understanding and appreciation of
the world of work and to prepare better and
aspire for it.
Guidance counselors can facilitate conduct of
career advocacy in collaboration with career
advocates and peer facilitators. The career
advocates are not necessarily registered and
licensed guidance counselors but they provide
direct guidance on career and employment
guidance.
OTHER COMPETENCIES THAT APPLY TO THE
BROADER COUNSELLING WORK
There are many competencies that apply to
almost all kinds of counseling contexts but not
uniformly. Different authors have thematized
them differently. Egan (2002) calls them the
three-stage theory of counseling and marks out
three broad competencies for a counselor that
includes:
 Stage 1: What's going on? This involves helping
clients to clarify the key issues calling for
change.

Stage 2: What solutions make sense for me? This

involves helping clients determine outcomes.

Stage 3: What do I have to do to get what I

need or want? This involves helping clients
develop strategies for accomplishing goals.
Many other writers also use a three-stage model
that looks at this working relationship as having a
beginning, middle, and end (Culley & Bond 2004:
Smith 2008). Alistair Ross (2003) provides a
similar model: starting out, moving on, and letting
go.
Culley & Bond (2004) have described all these as
foundation skills. They have grouped these
foundation skills around three headings:

1.) Attending and Listening. Attending and

listening skills refer to active listening, which
mens listening with purpose and responding in
such a way that clients are aware that they have
both been heard and understood.
 2.)Reflective Skills. These are concerned with the
other persons frame of reference. Reflective skills
capture what the clients is saying and place it back
to them but in the counselors own words.
3.) Probing Skills. This skills facilitate going deeper,
asking more directed or leading questions ( leading
in the sense that they move the conversation in a
particular direction). Probing tends to increase the
helper's control over both and content, and as a
result, should be used sparingly and with care,
particularly in the early stages of counselling.
 Elsewhere and across applied social science
disciplines, there are four common skills that
require studying the curriculum of accumulated
scientific knowledge across disciplines, which are
skills for communicating, motivating, problem
solving, and resolving conflicts.
 1.) Communication skills. These includes the
ability to actively listen, demonstrate
understanding, ask appropriate questions, and
provide information as needed. Active listening
involves listening to the words, the gestures and
other body language. Effective communication
means message you want to communicate is
received as you intended to be received.
 2.) Motivational skills. These skills are the ones
that influence a helpee to take action after the
helping session or consultation.
3.) Problem-solving skills. These include
differentiating between symptoms and the
problem, pinpointing probable causes and triggers
for the problem, and then generating a range of
possible solutions to the actual problem.
 4.) Conflict resolution skills. These involve
learning about styles of conflict resolution. It
includes recognizing the signs of it and learning
the process of conflict resolution.
 AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION
WHERE COUNSELORS WORK
Counselors are practically found in all spheres of human
development transitions, and caregiving. Peterson and
Nesenholz (1987) identified 11 major areas:
1.) Child development and counseling.As area of specialization
includes parent education, preschool counseling, early
childhood education, elementary school counseling, child
counseling in mental agencies, and counseling with battered
and abused children and their families.
2.) Adolescent development and counseling. As area of
specialization covers middle and high school counseling,
psychological education, career development
specialist,adolescent counseling in mental health
agencies, youth work in a resedential facility, and
youth probacion officer.
3.) Gerontology( the aged). As area of specialization is
considered te fastest growing field and essentially
involves counseling of older citizens.
 4.) Marital relatonship counsseling. Includes
prmarital counseling, marriage counseling, family
counseling, sex education, sexual dysfunction
counseling ad divorce mediation.
5.) Health. offers possibility for nutrition
counseling, exercise and health education, nurse-
counselor, rehabilitation counseling, stress
management counsseling, holistic health
counseling, anorexia or bulimia counseling, and
genetic counseling.
6.) Career/Lifestyle. includes guidance on choices
and decision-making pertaining to career or
lifestyle.
7.) College and University. College student
counseling, student activities, student personnel
work, resedential hall or dormitory counselor, and
counselor educator.
8.) Drugs. has several options such as 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 psychologyspecialist, and training
manager.
10.) Business and Industry. Include training and
development personnel, quality work-life or
quality circles manager,employee assistance
programs manager, employeecareer development
officer, affirmative action, or equal opportunity
specialist.
11.) Other specialties. include phobia counseling,
agoraphobia, self-management, intra-personal
management, and grief counseling.
 CAREER OPPORTUNITIES FOR COUNSELORS
Career opportunities for counselors cover
corporate environment in human resources
departments, school student services
departments, academe, NGOs, court, detentions
prison setting, as well as in a wide range of human
development service providers. They can work as
individual professionals or as members of a team
or as employees in agencies and departments that
deal with people.
 Educational and school counselors. They offer
personal, educational,social, and academic
counseling services.

Vocational and career counselors. These

professionals facilitate career decision-making.
They aid individuals or groups in determining jobs
that are best suited to their needs, skills, and
interests.
Marriage and family counselors. These professionals
offer a wide range of services fr couples and
families.

Addictions and behavioral counselors. These

professionals work with people suffering from
addictions.

Mental health counselors. These professionals work

with peple suffering from mental or psychological
distress such as anxiety, phobias, depression, grief,
esteem issues, trauma,substance abuse, and related
 Rehabilitation counselors. These professionals
are engaged with individuals suffering from
physical or emotional disabilities. Rehabilitation
counselors provide services such as evaluation ogf
the strengths and limitations of clients.

Genetics counselors. These professionals operate

in a very specialized context of dealing with
genetic information for individuals and the
decisions that come with it.
 RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITIES, AND
ACCOUNTABILITIES OF COUNSELORS
As state registered and licensed
professionals,counselors are protected. They are
governed by scientific theories, practices, and
processes as well as professional standards and
ethics. 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.
 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.
One of the oldest professional organizations in
guidance and counseling is the Institute of Guidance
Counselors, established in 1968,and now a professional
body representing over 1,200 practitioners in secondary
schools, colleges, adults guidance services, and private
practice and in other settings.
 Its preamble provides that guidance
counselors work with clients. They come as
individuals and in groups. They must work in ways
that promote clients' control over their own lives.
The values include an assertion that the work
of the guidance counselor involves a special
relationship of trust. That trust is safeguarded
and promoted by setting and monitoring
appropriate boundaries in the relationship, and
making this action explicit to the client and
relevant others.
 The Institute of Guidance Counselors' Code
consists of 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.
 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.
PRINCIPLE 3: Responsibility
Guidance counselors are aware of their
professional responsibility to act in a
trustworthy, reputable, and acountable manner
toward clients.
 PRINCIPLE 4: Integrity
Guidance counselors seek to promote integrity in
their practice. They represent themselves
accurately and treat others with honesty,
straightforwardness, and fairness.
 Many other similar codes exist with the same
expectations for ethical conduct. The
fundamental principles include the following:
* Respecting human rights and dignity
* Respect for the client's right to be self-
governing
* A commitment to promoting the client's well-
being
* Fostering responsible caring
* Fair treatment of all clients and the provision
of adequate services
 * Equal opportunity to clients availing counseling
services
* Ensuring the integrity of practitioner-client
relationship
* Fostering the practitioner's self-knowledge and
care for self
* Enhancing the quality of professional knowledge
and its application
* Responsibility to the society
 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.