COUNSELING, INTERVIEWING AND RECORDING SKILLS AT TRAINING OF TRAINERS WORKSHOP OLUFUNSO OWASANOYE(MRS) HUMAN DEVELOPME

1. COUNSELING, INTERVIEWING AND RECORDING SKILLS AT TRAINING OF TRAINERS WORKSHOP OLUFUNSO OWASANOYE(MRS) HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES 20TH JUNE 2013 T

2. Introduction The Child’s Right Law (CRL) of Lagos State 2007 seeks to protect and preserve the rights of children • In spite of CRL students still experience different forms of physical, sexual and emotional abuse • Some of the rights of a child is to be free from torture, bad treatment, have right to protection, security and liberty.

3. Cont’d

4. Cont’d • Every students needs guidance, support and opportunities as they face diverse challenges both personally and developmentally that has effect on their academics. • School counselors must be people who students can turn to when they need help

5. Cont’d • Overcoming the effect of abuse often requires identification, intervention and prevention. • Emotional/Trauma/psychosocial counseling will be one of the main functions of district and school guidance counselor in it's service to students.

6. The focus of this presentation is psycho-social counseling, interviewing and reporting skills for students victims of abuse Emotional trauma could result from rape, pregnancy resulting from rape, abortion, teenage motherhood, sexual abuse, child marriage, conflict with the law, verbal abuses, physical abuse such as corporal punishment etc.

7. Cont’d

8. Any child that has experienced any form of the above abuse may have their thinking process impaired and their emotional tank filled with guilt or hatred or both • Therapeutic exercise such as counseling may be required to rebuild the child’s confidence and esteem and repair the emotional damage. • In order to achieve this the Counselor requires certain special skills

9. Physical abuse and rape victim

10. Baby carrying Baby

11. Counseling There are various definitions with same meaning such as counseling is giving advice, helping to clarify issues, transforming lives, bringing about change. Counseling is essentially a lively human experience between two people which requires commitment of time and effort from both parties. The aim is for counselor to help client find solution to their problem and bring about positive change.

12. Preparing for counseling • Analyzing Self • Know yourself before trying to help others know themselves. • Good problem solvers may be poor counselors. • Do not stray beyond your level of expertise.

13. School Counselor • Provide students with career, personal, social and educational counseling • School counselors help students evaluate their abilities, interests, talents and personalities to develop career goals. • Work with students who have academic and social development problems or other special needs.

14. A counselor is someone who has Sincerity of Purpose /genuineness, that is there must be congruence between your verbal and nonverbal behavior and no pretense. • Warmth • Stress Tolerance • Integrity • Sensitivity(understand why people react) • Open mindedness.(receptive to new ideas)

15. Cont’d • The three R’s are important: Respect, Reliable and responsible. • Patience • Calm disposition • Encourager • Cooperative

16. Counsellor • A counsellor must have a passion(strong desire) for helping people . • For you to counsel you must check yourself in terms of attitude and character. • Your character is what you do, think and say when no one is with you or seeing you. • You must be discipline.

17. Counselling skill

18. counselling Pattern of Counselling: Venue of Counselling must be conducive • Introduction • Information gathering • Discussion • Conclusion/summary focus on main points in order to highlight them • Referral .

19. Listening Ear

20. COUNSELLING SKILL • Accept the victim • Empathy understand and share the feeling of victim • Be Effective in communication: Eye to eye contact, self control, and full concentration. • Be an active listener and be less interruptive of the victim's talk • Give full attention: the experience of having someone pay close attention can be very calming for someone struggling with some strong feeling

21. Counselling skills cont’d 7.Avoid argument that puts the victim on defensive. 8.Maintain confidentiality. 9.Non judgmental. 10. Silence, no interruption 11. Time management is important, but do not rush.

22. Angry counsellor

23. Encourage Counselee to accept the situation and you to also show acceptance • Encourage appropriate emotional release e.g. Crying or intermittent sobs • Identify precipitative events in order to avoid reoccurrence • Help victim to adjust to school life or vocational study life again • Do referral for further appropriate support for example Legal, medical, financial or emotional support. Do not prescribe drugs.

25. Interviewing skills • For you to counsel and interview child abuse victims, you must have special skills and knowledge of child developmental process, this helps to build a foundation for effective interview of the child.

26. Interviewing skills • Infancy • Pre school • Teen/Adolescence Once you have understanding of these stages, you will have the knowledge of how the child can communicate his or her thoughts and feelings. There is need to always follow up and have other sessions with the victim to bring about total change.

27. Encourage and reassure the child. • Use Open – ended or leading questions to get the full story for example, What happened next?, Tell me what you mean. These are brief questions that can stir up discussions. • Paraphrasing • Listen for spoken and unspoken words/gestures • Self control, do not show shock or unbelief. • Good tone in a conducive environment

28. Note taking : write down information, it could be done during or after your session with the victim. • Summary : focus on the main points to highlight them. • Do not ask questions like: Why? It sounds judgmental. • Filtering - victims do not always tell the whole story, mentally try to sort it out through their words.

29. Referrals : NGO’s such as Human Development Initiatives, Office of Public Defender,, Ministry of Women Affairs, Welfare, Child Help line agencies, Police, hospitals and other appropriate authorities,

30. Often times the client comes in feeling depressed and dejected. Ensure that he/she walks out of the door with some excitement and hope.

31. Neutral questions : Ask questions not relating to the event such as: Did anyone ask you to see me today? • What is your favorite food? • How many are your siblings? • Where does uncle or auntie live? • What kind of things does he/she do with the family? • Are there things he/she does especially for you? • What are your favorite colors?

32. RECORDING • NAME : SCHOOL: DATE: CLASS • AGE: INFORMATION: • ACTION: REFERRAL: FOLLOW-UP • COMMENTS: END OF CASE: • NAME OF COUNSELOR AND DATE.

33. Cont’d • Recordings can be saved on a computer • Written clearly in a hard cover book/protective plastic file • On mobile phone • Electronic tapes and transcribe

35. Conclusion You cannot get the ear of a child, unless you touch the heart. You need to show empathy with compassion to help a child

36. Conclusion Identification, Prevention and Protection from ABUSE must be our watch word. It is the collective responsibility of all of us.

37. Conclusion We must always remember that each individual is unique, circumstances though similar are not usually 100 percent identical and even after acquiring excellent skills we cannot solve every problem or have answers to every question. We should know our limitations and never make promises we cannot keep.

38. CASE STUDY Three children(aged 4-10years) were trafficked from a neighbouring town to Lagos. Children abused physically on the way to Lagos, without food. The children were rescued and brought to your agency, weak, afraid and distrustful of every adult.

39. Exercise and Role Play What immediate issues should you be concerned with. • One participant to act as the interviewer and another as one of the children. • Build an interview scenario which would enable you help these children. Put into practice, skills for effective interviewing.

40. BALLOON GAME • Tie baloon round your waist(6 people) • 6 six people to burst the ballon • What is your reaction when balloon was burst • Those that burst the balloon are attackers • Those that tie balloon are child protectors

41. Write down your action points what you will do after this seminar that is what I can do be an agent of change.

42. Conclusion THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION • Olufunso Owasanoye • JUNE 2013.

43. Happy and Sad box • We put a box called HAPPY and SAD in each of the school we give moral and live issues talk, the student writes on a paper and drop in each side whatever makes them happy or sad. • At the end of the week the write ups are analysed and acted on accordingly

44. Communication tool.