A counselling psychologist, Dr Cecelia Tutu-Danquah, has called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to engage professional counsellors to support pupils and students in basic schools. 

She said in spite of the important role of trained counsellors towards the well-being and academic performance of pupils, the GES record showed that basic schools did not have professional counsellors to guide pupils in times of need.

Consequently, she said, children who encountered challenges such as parental crisis and bullying that could affect their mental health and school performance lacked access to the services of trained counsellors.

“Today, the people who are counselling our children in their formative stage, where they need counselling to make informed decisions, do not know the ethics of the profession, and may use their personal experiences and others to prescribe interventions that may worsen cases of our children,” she said. 

Danger 

At the National Counsellors’ Networking Summit in Accra, Dr Tutu-Danquah, who is the President of TUCEE Institute of Counselling and Technology, said currently it was only the district offices of the GES that had trained counsellors.

“These counsellors can never attend to all the basic school children, and it is very risky for us as a nation.”

“This is because children are now forming and they are going through adolescent stages, with some having issues with parental crisis, and there is no counsellor to guide them to overcome emotional stress,” she said.

The event, which was held on the theme: “Advancing global innovations and breakthroughs in counselling practice”, brought together professional and trained counsellors to network and improve their knowledge. 

First aid counsellors

Dr Tutu-Danquah, who is also a lecturer at the Department of Teacher Education of the University of Ghana, said in Ghana, both public and private schools engaged teachers who served as “first aiders” to counsel pupils and students.

Unlike second-cycle schools that had professional counsellors, she said teachers engaged for counselling services at basic schools lacked the basic techniques and the theories of professional counselling.

Such development, she said, was contrary to the situation that pertained in the developed world, where there were whole periods on schools’ curricula for counselling, mental health support, psychosocial aid for pupils and students.

Such lessons, she said, allowed trained counsellors to have private time with each pupil and student for them to speak about their challenges without shame.

“It is a shame we do not have such professionals, but at least GES can let those teachers serving as first aiders in basic schools acquire knowledge in counselling,” she said. 

Wrong therapy, interventions

Touching on other untrained counsellors in the Ghanaian society, Dr Tutu-Danquah expressed concern over persons lacking counselling ethics often counselling based on “revelations, Ananse stories and their personal experiences”.

“They are not professionals to be able to scan you just as when you go to the hospital and you are asked to go for a lab.”

“The professionals have the psychometric test and other things to run and find out what is actually happening, but those who are not trained do not have these skills, and so they are highly likely to give you wrong therapy or intervention,” she said.