ROLE AND FUNCTION OF THE COUNSELOR 107 For example, a number of counselors in educational programs have dual roles, i.e., they carry other duties in addition to counseling. In fact, in some schools counselors are also part-time teachers. This inevitably leads to role conflict and should be avoided whenever possible. Moreover, some school counselors attempt to provide guidance by lecturing in a classroom situation rather than on a one-to-one basis, as should be the case. The classroom approach may be suitable for the dissemination of occupational information, but individualized counseling is necessary for personal, educational, and vocational planning for the individual student. Frequently, students and other school personnel have misconceptions regarding the role of the counselor. They may see him as primarily a guidance person. While guidance is an integral part of the counselor's work, it is by no means his only function. To remedy this, counselors should make special efforts to convey to others the goals of counseling as well as the role of the counselor. In conclusion, it can be stated that the role and functions of the counselor with deaf persons are basically the same as would be the case were he working with hearing people. However, some exceptions to this generalization deserve note. First, the communication problems faced by the deaf client generally preclude referral to many of the resources the counselor of the hearing person would use. For example, a placement specialist unable to use sign language and uninformed about the vocational implications of deafness would not be able to work effectively with most deaf clients. Thus, the responsibility for placement would rest with the counselor. Other functions such as interpreting in interviews with physicians and lawyers, assisting in psychological testing, interceding with employers, and the like cause the role of the specialist with deaf people to be much broader and his counseling functions more varied than the counselor who devotes all of his efforts to counseling and delegates all other tasks to paraprofessionals or specialists in related areas. Thus, the counselor of deaf clients might be termed a "general practitioner" in the sense that his duties are quite varied. At the same time, however, he is a specialist with respect to his knowledge of the uniqueness of his client. 78-885 - 72 - pt. 2 - 27 CHAPTER V Counselor Selection, Education, and Training JOHN F. MCGOWAN This chapter has two purposes. The first is to review recommendations published by divisional committees of the American Psychological Association, the American Personnel and Guidance Association, and the National Rehabilitation Association, dealing with the selection, education, and training of vocational rehabilitation counselors. Reports resulting from meetings of the Rehabilitation Services Administration sponsored annual workshops on guidance, training, and placement, reports prepared under the authority of the Joint Liaison Council, and the results of several appropriate Ph.D. studies are also reviewed for background data on training recommendations. The second purpose of this chapter is to relate these recommendations to the selection, education, and training of counselors who are to work with deaf people. Several parts of the chapter consist of revised and updated material that was originally prepared by McGowan and Porter for use in the R.S.A. training manual, An Introduction to the Vocational Rehabilitation Process (1967). Material contained in earlier chapters of this book have helped to define vocational rehabilitation counseling and have identified the various roles and functions of counselors. These materials have established the fact that differences of opinion do exist in regard to the counselor's role and function that need to be examined in more detail before any definitive statements can be made in regard to training. This can best be accom 108 COUNSELOR SELECTION, EDUCATION, AND TRAINING 109 plished by reviewing the two different theoretical "models" of the counselor's role that dominate counselor training and practice at the present time and by considering present approaches used in preparing counselors for work with deaf people. THEORETICAL MODELS OF THE COUNSELOR'S ROLE As Chapter IV has indicated, the opinions expressed in the literature regarding the rehabilitation counselor's appropriate occupational role reveal two rather diffuse but nevertheless discernible theoretical models. The first model conceptualizes the rehabilitation counselor functioning as an interdisciplinary or sometimes multidisciplinary worker, a coordinator of services, and "captain of the rehabilitation team" (Coordinator Model). The other model depicts the counselor as being primarily a "professional counselor" whose main contribution to the rehabilitation process is his counseling function (Counselor Model). Patterson (1957) discusses the rehabilitation counselor's role in an article entitled "Counselor or Coordinator?" He states that: "On this point there appears to be some difference of opinion, or confusion, or both" (p. 13). He further points out that the rehabilitation counselor training programs need an answer to this question in order to plan a course of study that will prepare counselors to perform their prescribed function. A discussion of the pros and cons of the Coordinator Model and the Counselor Model follows. The "Coordinator" Model Cottle (1953) has this to say about the rehabilitation counselor's job: In himself and his fellow counselors he (the rehabilitation counselor) sees a combination of parent, doctor, psychologist, teacher, policeman, public relations expert, personnel manager, placement specialist, and jack of all trades. Certainly the field of vocational rehabilitation is one of the broadest in the whole catalog of professions. (p. 446) Hamilton (1950) and Johnson (1960) suggest that they do not perceive of "counseling" as being the counselor's major task. They try to show the counselor as a "coordinator" of many types of services, and therefore a person who must possess a multitude of skills based on a wide range of training. Johnston (1960) maintains that the rehabilitation counselor is not a psychologist, psychiatrist, sociologist, social worker, or physician. He is a "maverick" of the highest caliber drawn from all the above 110 COUNSELING WITH DEAF PEOPLE and more. To quote him, "he is an expert coordinator of services. . . He has many general abilities and special abilities in at least two or more disciplines" (p. 9). Fletcher (1954), sees the rehabilitation counselor as part of the team made up of medical, social service, hospital, placement, and other specialists. He feels that the rehabilitation counselor should be the team coordinator but does not see him as established in this role. Hall and Warren (1956) and Smith (1960) list the following activities that are expected from rehabilitation counselors, although admitting that only an ideal counselor or person could perform all the suggested duties. According to them the counselor is asked to interview the client, evaluate his problems, help the client choose a rehabilitation plan, facilitate action on the plan, establish and maintain a counseling relationship, maintain relations with community organizations, interpret rehabilitation. services to the public, encourage referrals, determine eligibility, collect and analyze educational and occupational data, administer psychological tests, assume responsibility for placement, and prepare case records and reports. In addition, the rehabilitation counselor is also expected to perform certain auxiliary services which include: Gathering material from employers and trade associations, assessing community resources, and making his own occupational and economic analysis. Propst (1958) offers a three-part definition of the rehabilitation counselor's function: 1. A counselor is a member of the professional staff of an agency whose function is the rehabilitation of handicapped individuals. 2. He is an administrative agent to such individuals insofar as he supplies vocational information, arranges for tests, the purchase of prosthetic devices, interviews with others, workshop or training experience, and so forth, and insofar as he controls the client's utilization of, and passage through, the facilities he makes available. 3. He is a therapeutic agent to such individuals insofar as he provides a setting, and makes responses, of such character as to facilitate the client's working through, to some degree, that alteration in self-view of which, in part, his handicap consists. (p. 16) Propst contends that the counseling and administrative roles of the rehabilitation counselor are compatible, and that, in fact such a combined function is both possible and desirable when working with a handicapped person. The danger of holding to the "Coordinator" model is that the rehabilitation counselor could lose his perception of the client as a unique COUNSELOR SELECTION, EDUCATION, AND TRAINING 111 individual. That is, there seems to be a danger that the "Coordinator" would become too product-oriented and begin to provide mechanically services without considering the personality dynamics involved in a client's problems. He then would be providing the services a client was entitled to by law without adequate consideration of the client's individuality or needs. Also, the training of "Coordinators" presents problems. To provide an individual with formal training in each of the areas listed in the Charlottesville report would take more time and money than is now available, and it is likely that a person trained this broadly would not be professionally competent in any area. The "Coordinator" might not have a professional idenuity, be neither fish nor fowl, and a "jack of all trades and master of none." The "Counselor" Model The proponents of the rehabilitation counselor as a "Counselor" criticize the above approach as being humanly impossible in terms of the counselor's ability and time for training, as well as making no new contribution to the rehabilitation process. Patterson (1958a) states the following in opposition to the "Coordinator" point of view: The rehabilitation counselor will become an accepted member of the team only if he can contribute as a specialist, not on the basis of having been exposed to a heterogeneous smattering of courses in these other fields.... The rehabilitation counselor is fundamentally a vocational counselor or a psychological counselor working with handicapped clients. He is not a member of a unique or interdisciplinary profession. Rehabilitation counseling will develop and advance as a profession to the extent that it recognizes itself as a part of the general counseling profession and identifies itself with other counseling specialties both in training and professional affiliation. (p. 312) In another publication Patterson (1958b) offers the opinion that too often rehabilitation does things to and for the client rather than helping him learn to do things for himself. He stresses that there are several ways the counselor can help his client learn independence. They are: (1) counselor attitudes, (2) the softening of the "case-hardened" counselor to treat the client as an individual and not as just another case, (3) confidence in the client's ability to assume responsibility, (4) recognition of individual differences among clients, and (5) no counselor stereotypes of occupational choices (e.g., making shoe repairmen of lower-limb amputees, etc.). Patterson (1958b) feels that the rehabilitation counselor can only gain personal independence and professional status through his identification with the area of counseling. |