APPENDICES
2.2 The state of School Psychological Services
2.2.5 Components of School Psychological Services in South Africa
2.2.5.2 Learner wellness or mental health services
These are service aimed at promoting the psychological or mental well-being of learners. Myers, Clarke, Brown and Champion (2012, p. 18) define wellness as “an active process through which people become aware of, and make choices toward a more successful existence, a quest for maximum functioning that involves body, mind and soul”. These services include guidance, counselling, substance abuse prevention and pastoral care.
2.2.5.2.1 Guidance services
This is the oldest of all the psychological services which focuses mainly on advice-giving. It became formalised in the South African education system during the introduction of school guidance and counselling. Thus its practitioners were called guidance counsellors or guidance teachers. There is no universally agreed definition of guidance, and according to Rooth (2005), guidance was variously defined depending on the approach used to provide its services, political contexts and agenda envisioned for the school guidance programme. The word ‘guidance’ means different things to different people. In historical terms, guidance has been used in the field of education to refer to the assistance given to learners in an attempt to resolve problems which lay outside the scope of the classroom teaching situations (Chuenyane, 1990; Makinde, 1988;
Shertzer & Stone, 1976). With the passage of time it has grown to encompass the help given to learners in the solution of vocational, educational and personal problems (Chuenyane, 1990).
Guidance is defined as the process of helping individuals to solve problems and be free and responsible members of a world community within which they live (Chuenyane 1990, p. 8). The process of guidance is seen as a dynamic process which involves a series of sequential actions, activities or services the purpose of which is prevention, remediation and amelioration of human difficulties. In the same vein, Gladding’s (2000, p. 4) sees guidance as “a process of helping people to make important choices that affect their lives, such as choosing a preferred lifestyle”.
In this connection, Mkhatshwa (1996) asserts that guidance refers to the orientation of young people to realize and develop their educational and vocational potentialities. According to Mutie and Ndambuki (1999, p. 1), “guidance is a means of helping individuals to understand and use
wisely the educational, vocational and personal opportunities they have as a form of systematic assistance in achieving satisfactory adjustment to school and life in general”. In South Africa guidance was seen as a curriculum activity while counselling was viewed as a separate service [National Education Policy Investigation, 1992].
The term ‘helping’ permeates all the above definitions and is the core purpose and core of any school guidance programme. School guidance is not only about helping individuals solve problems (Chuenyane, 1990), it is about helping them understand themselves (Gillis, 1996), make important choices (Gladding, 2000), and helping them make use of their educational and vocational opportunities (Mkhatshwa, 1996; Mutie and Ndambuki, 1999). This means that guidance is essentially about helping with a clear purpose or goal in mind. This view of guidance is consistent with De Lange’s (1981) view that guidance is “a process of bringing the learner into contact with the world of reality in such a way that he acquires Life Skills and techniques which allow him to direct himself completely (i.e. to become self-actualising) within the educational, personal and social spheres and the world of work, in order to progress and survive effectively”
(HSRC, 1981). All the definitions have ‘bringing learners into contact with reality’ as the main activity of a guidance programme. Thus guidance is not only characterized by its goal of helping but it is also characterized by the fact that it is not an event but a process, longitudinal in nature and oriented towards the future.
In an attempt to provide a synthesis of the above definitions, I draw on Makinde (1988), who summarised the four identifiable elements of guidance as follows:-
1. Process: guidance is not a single event but a series of actions or steps progressively
2. Helping: it is aiding, assisting or availing, the major purpose of which is the prevention and amelioration of human difficulties by provision of specialized help.
3. Individual: refers to students or clients in the school or other setting. Specifically, guidance is seen as assistance given to normal students.
4. The goal of guidance is understanding himself and his world: the individual comes to know who he is as an individual, aware of his personal identity, the nature of his person is clearly perceived as is his world, the aggregate of his surrounding and the people with whom he comes into contact with is experienced more deeply and
completely. (Makinde, 1988, p. 42)
Since this study is about School Psychological Services, which includes guidance as one of its core services, it is important to understand how through guidance learners are helped to persevere despite the challenges confronting them. Guidance is an essential service vital for promoting and enhancing learners’ mental health, thereby enabling to focus on their studies. This implies that the school has the responsibility to help learners to be free to express themselves and create a meaningful life. A guidance programme is thus designed to facilitate personal, social, educational and vocational choices and decision making. It aims at enabling and empowering learners to recognize their strengths and limitations, to make appropriate choices and decisions in order to realize their potential and become self-fulfilled, productive and responsible citizens. The school as a socializing agent has to assist in the transmission of clearly held beliefs and values.
Guidance is, in this case, seen as an important integral part of the educational function of the school, as something schools could use to prepare youth for future adult roles.
On the delivery of guidance services, the National Education Policy Investigation (NEPI) Report (Mashile, 2000) contended that a systemic-preventive approach to the provision of guidance
individual in the true psychological sense. The former takes into account the bigger picture of social dynamics and the environment in which learners live. In the systemic-preventive approach the emphasis is upon interventions and the creation of healthy environments which prevent individual personality breakdown and foster the development of personal capacities to cope with life’s challenges. Such an approach is more cost-effective in terms of resources and manpower.
Guidance services should, therefore, be for all learners at different academic levels and should include Learner inventory services which helps counsellors to know learners as individuals, gather their personal, psychological and social data and understand their needs and concerns;
Information services which is about providing learners with information so they are better prepared to make informed and meaningful choices in their lives; Counselling services which according to Chuenyane (1990), this is the heart of the guidance programme designed to facilitate self-understanding and self-acceptance, self-development and self-realization through the person-to-person relationships. Counselling is an individualised activity which focuses on the individual, providing him/her with the opportunity for self-study, decision-making, planning and the resolution of personal problems; Placement services which are designed to assist the learner in recognising, creating, and selecting educational and/or occupational opportunities which will facilitate his growth and development; Follow-up services which involves tracing former beneficiaries of a programme to assess how well they are functioning after intervention, and how effective the intervention was, so as to provide tangible evidence of the programme’s effectiveness; highlights problems and programme inadequacies, successes and failures within the school curriculum that needs revision, improvement and change (Chuenyane, 1990).
Evaluation services which “consists of making systematic judgements of the relative
effectiveness with which goals are attained in relation to specified students. It involves soliciting information from former learners, analyse, interpret and disseminate information concerning the degree to which the school programme is meeting the needs of individual learners” (Chuenyane, 1990, pp. 47-8).
However, in South Africa school guidance has not always been implemented to achieve the ideals as indicated above. For instance, Chuenyane (1990, p. 11) noted that, “Guidance in Black schools has, at best, received lip service and less implementation and has not occupied a place of prominence but to a large extent it has been left to vicarious chance”. The nature, characteristics and effectiveness of such haphazard programme of services and ways of remedying the situation is explored in this current study. Nevertheless, school guidance is an aspect of School Psychological Services and its principles could be used to explain the basis for practice of school psychology.
2.2.5.2.2 Counselling services
School Psychological Services are about helping learners communicate about issues affecting them, which is what counselling is. It is a type of psychological services which focuses on the affective aspect (i.e. emotions or feelings) of adolescent development. According to Chuenyane (1990), it is the ‘brain and the heart’ of the Guidance programme. Ferron (1990) refers to counselling as a process of helping students to discover their potential for intellectual, physical, social, spiritual and psychological development. Thus counselling is also seen as a helping relationship directed towards the personal happiness and social usefulness of the individual.
According to Van Dyk (2001, pp. 200-201),
“counselling is a structured conversation aimed at facilitating a client’s quality of life in the face of adversity. The purpose of counselling is twofold: (1) to help clients manage their problems more effectively and develop unused or underused opportunities to cope more fully, and (2) to help and empower clients to become more effective self-helpers in the future”.
According to Gladding (2000, p. 5), “the distinction between Guidance and Counselling is that whereas guidance focuses on helping individuals choose what they value most, counselling focuses on helping them make changes”. Counselling is seen as growth engendering and prevention and remediation oriented. It is primarily aimed at the welfare of young people.
Through counselling, clients experiencing ‘rough spots’ are helped to smooth them with no personality defects incurred, motivated to make changes that are in their best interests, and self- defeating behaviours reversed – all these for the sole purpose of maximizing their potential.
Rather than being focused solely on learners with problems, “counselling should have a preventive rather than a remedial function. It should be concerned with the promotion and protection of health”. Rooth’s (2005, p. 70) assertion that “counselling is understood as a curative concept where the school counsellor would offer specific help to learners who were experiencing problems” succinctly summarises the dominant general perception of educators and learners as to the importance of counselling in schools. Undoubtedly, South African learners need a daily dose of counselling services considering the many challenges they deal with daily, such as sexual abuse and domestic violence.
McLaughlin (1999, p. 13) postulates that “counselling in schools has three elements: an educative function, i.e., to develop students personally and socially in the context of the school; a reflective function, which is the exploration of the possible impact of and contribution to personal and social development and mental health of practices in the classroom and other aspects of the school community; and a welfare function, which is the responsibility to plan for and react to issues which impact on learners’ welfare”. She maintains that it is pupils with problems, personal and academic, that are being excluded in greater numbers and emphasises that counselling is an important part of a school’s response.
According to Mashile (2000, p. 95) the word ‘counselling’ is reserved for qualified ‘school counsellors’ or ‘school psychologists’. A qualified school psychologist needs to have at least a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology and to be registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). Counselling is thus of a curative (therapeutic) nature offering specific help to individuals experiencing difficulties in their lives. Counsellors are not usually employed in mainstream schools, but in special schools. Hence their services are limited to a relatively small number of learners. Maguire and Killeen (2003) cautioned that “counselling is a necessary part of the work of a school and that the acquisition of counselling skills demands training and an alteration of attitudes which educators must work to achieve”. Though used interchangeably, counselling and psychotherapy have slight and distinctive differences.
Counselling – which is mainly offered as part of a psychotherapy process – is a short-term process that encourages the change of behaviour whereas psychotherapy is a long-term process of treatment that identifies emotional issues and the background of problems and difficulties.
Counselling tends to be wellness oriented and provides increased insight and learning how to
effectively overcome problems and challenges, and psychotherapy is a treatment for a diagnosable mental health issue such as depression and suicide. Hence, Ivey and Ivey (2007) conceptualise psychotherapy as a more intense process, focusing on deep-seated personality, emotional and behavioural difficulties. It is considered an exploratory interviewing technique through which one person helps another to find relief from emotional pain. According to Kazdin (1993), psychotherapy includes a wide range of interventions designed to decrease or eliminate symptoms and maladjustment and to improve adaptive and prosocial functioning.
Summarising the definitions given above, counselling denotes a Psychological Service which is aimed at changing attitudes and behaviour of the clients by making clients analyse their capabilities, achievements, interests and decision-making skills. It serves both preventive and curative functions and empowers clients to make positive changes in their lives. Counselling is the domain of a trained counsellor and is targeted at individuals with problems. According to Low (2009) teachers’ acceptance of school-based counselling is critical for the development of a sustainable counselling service that is beneficial to students.
“School counselling services are therefore typically provided by school counsellors who work with learners to develop their career awareness, to improve their understanding of self, and to improve their behavioural adjustment and control skills. This in turn makes students, including learners with disabilities, better able to participate in their educational programme. In many schools, the counsellor may also perform the functions of the school psychologists. Additionally school counsellors may: identify and refer learners who may be eligible for special education;
secure parental permission for referrals; provide advice concerning a learner’s level of
functioning, affective needs, and appropriateness of the Individualised Education Programme (IEP); provide learner Guidance and Counselling in keeping with the IEP, and provide supportive counselling for parents” (Kupper, 1991).
In South Africa, the IEP referred to above is called Learner Support Programme in the Inclusive Education Policy document, namely White Paper 6 (DoE, 2001). The removal of guidance and counselling from school curricula in South African led to the introduction of Life Orientation as a sensible replacement (c.f. 2.3.2.1). Although Life Orientation is part and parcel of School Psychological Services it, unlike its predecessor, does not entail the provisioning of counselling services. Traditionally, according to Juma (2011), indigenous Africans viewed counselling as a
‘White people’s thing’ and very intrusive, but mainstream psychology treats aspects of counselling as universal and beneficial to all people, irrespective of their culture or religion.
School Psychological Services also include pastoral or spiritual care, which guidance evolved from. Woodruff (2002) defines pastoral care as “a unique form of counselling which uses spiritual resources as well as psychological understanding for healing and growth. It is provided by individuals who are not only mental health professionals but also by persons who have had in- depth religious and/or theological training. It has evolved from religious counselling to in-depth counselling and pastoral psychotherapy which integrates theological understanding and pastoral identity with pastoral insight and psychotherapeutic practice”. According to Karner (2008), “it is a means of providing comfort to those suffering as a result of life’s challenges, including long- term or life-limiting illness, death of a loved one, separation and divorce, or aging”. It is shepherding the flock, protecting, tending to needs, strengthening, encouraging, making
provision, leading by example, and so on. In a school context, it is commonly applied to the practice of looking after the personal and social well-being of children under the care of the teacher.
Cowie and Pecherek (1994) suggest that pastoral care contains three main elements. They are:
helping young people toward achieving the skills and personal qualities which they will need for informed decision-making and the acquisition of personal autonomy; acknowledging and suitably equipping learners with the skills required for adulthood, and providing help, guidance and support in order that learners can function effectively in school. Woodruff (2002) identifies
“four fundamental functions of pastoral care, namely, healing, sustaining, guiding and reconciling”. It is non-sectarian and respects the spiritual commitments and religious traditions of those who seek assistance, without imposing counsellor beliefs on to the client. Woodruff (2002) contends that “the goal of qualified pastoral counsellors is to provide clinically accountable and spiritually sensitive care to those who seek their assistance”.
According to the Government Gazette, vol. 540, No. 33283 (2010), in the face of HIV and AIDS and the accompanying physical and psychosocial stress on learners and educators, schools need holistic counselling and pastoral care. However, the religious connotation behind its nomenclature is the reason why pastoral care was replaced by guidance and counselling. South Africa being a secular state with many different religions cannot promote one religion at the expense of the others as it goes against the letter of the constitution. This however does not mean that pastoral care cannot be used to help learners deal with their problems or any issues affecting their livelihood. Pastoral services in schools are better than nothing as anything that has learners’
best interests at heart should be used to ameliorate psychological pain and enhance mental health.
2.2.5.2.3 Substance abuse prevention programme
With the rampant abuse of drugs in South African schools, there is a huge need a prevention programme which is part and parcel of School Psychological Services, including school counsellors. Prevention is defined in literature as “a proactive process which promotes health by empowering people with resources necessary to constructively confront complex, stressful life conditions and to enable individuals to lead personally satisfying, and enriching lives” (Schwartz
& Bodanske, 1981, p. 192). The need for a substance abuse prevention programme is clear as mooted from studies such as Botvin, Baker, Dusenbury, Tortu, and Botvin (1990) and Sikes, Cole, McBride, Fusco and Lauka (2009) indicating the abuse of drugs and alcohol by young people as a problem which is escalating at an alarming rate. In fact the political transformation which riveted world attention is being spoiled by the country (South Africa) becoming one of the most lucrative countries for drug trafficking, dramatically increasing alcohol and substance abuse, accompanied by a dramatic increase in crime. According to Sikes et al., (2009) prevention of adolescent substance use is imperative as individuals who do not use substances during adolescence are less likely to use during adulthood. Maiden (2001) states “of particular concern is the trend for progressively younger age groups, from as young as eight or nine, becoming involved with drugs in the form of inhalants and alcohol”. Though it is impossible to authenticate the extent of drug abuse amongst young people, research indicates that most adolescents experiment with alcohol and /or drugs prior to leaving school, and as many as 25% of male