Counseling center

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Advice center is a collective name for institutions that offer different types of support and assistance, which can be differentiated according to the concerns of the person seeking advice, the forms of conversation and the objectives. Viewed from the extremes, it would be possible to span a range from pure factual advice to psychosocial crisis intervention . In between there are various transitional and mixed forms. One of the basic requirements of a complex society, which is also in a state of constant change, is advisory services in the event of

to develop and offer. Advice should enable orientation and reorientation , help develop skills and resources and open up future prospects. State funding for a large number of advice centers takes this need into account. In addition to the professionalism, the relation to society is a characteristic of the work of a counseling center. In order to carry out its tasks, it has qualified staff and adequate spatial and material resources to carry out its work. A counseling center should be accessible without bureaucratic and financial hurdles (low-threshold) if possible.

Counseling has to face a paradox: to support without patronizing. Ensuring an appropriate attitude on a permanent basis requires more than the professional qualification and ethical self-commitment of the advising person. The organization of the advice center, which is discussed below, must be designed accordingly.

Special advice centers

Advice centers with a special mandate, mostly based on a legal basis:

Sponsorship, structure, organization and professionalism of advice centers

Advice centers are sponsored by municipalities, churches, associations or clubs (see also private sponsors ). They can be closely linked to an institution and interwoven in its range of tasks (e.g. student advising at universities). Some are more specialized (e.g. counseling and therapy for victims of violence , for refugees , counseling for addicts , pregnancy counseling , sexual counseling and much more), others are more open to a wide range of questions, topics and occasions (general life counseling , health counseling ). Many advice centers work on the basis of explicit guidelines. Their offer and their professional working methods are therefore transparent and are subject to control by sponsors, professional associations and the political public.

Institutional educational counseling can serve as a model for this. The “Federal Conference for Educational Advice” (BKE) regulates tasks, organization and structure for them; one can speak of formalized “rules of professional ability” and in this sense of standards. Among other things, it describes the staffing of the facility, to which a team from various professional groups (psychology, pedagogy, social work / social pedagogy) with additional therapeutic training qualifying for the activity (child therapy, couple counseling, conversation psychotherapy , systemic family therapy , psychoanalytic focal counseling, etc.) heard. The standards also include the confidentiality of conversations, their free of charge for those seeking advice and free access. All employees of an educational counseling center are obliged to supervision and continuous training. In recent years it has become common to speak of institutional advice in such cases. The term “institutional” is intended to underline the social mandate and the obligation to central community values ​​- with the best interests of the child at the center. The Child and Youth Welfare Act (SGB VIII) formulates a very differentiated basis for the entitlement that children, young people and parents have to counseling; it also describes the tasks of counseling in the family and youth welfare system .

In addition to discussions with individuals, couples and families, the obligations of an educational counseling center include diagnostics, for example in the case of child's perception or language problems, as well as prevention. The latter includes cooperation with youth welfare institutions, education and health systems, and public relations work. The services of a counseling center are evaluated. A large number of scientific studies deal with the effectiveness and the effective factors of advisory processes; In this way, they contribute to the transparency of practice and to (further) quality development. The latter also applies to the area of ​​marriage and life counseling.

In recent years, new modes have been added to the traditional form of counseling, in which those seeking advice and counselors meet directly. Advice via the Internet is one of them - it follows on from a tradition that is characteristic, for example, of telephone counseling . Another form of counseling is blended counseling, in which the respective advantages of online and face-to-face counseling can be used. With the development of society, new topics arise, such as bullying , outplacement advice and coaching . Separation and divorce counseling is also playing an increasingly important role and is creating new forms of counseling, such as mediation as an independent support process.

See also

literature

  • Frank Nestmann, Frank Engel, Ursel Sickendiek (ed.): The handbook of advice. Volume 1 and 2. Tübingen 2004.

Web links

Wiktionary: Advice center  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Violence against Women" helpline
  2. ↑ Rauchmelder BAC - drug advice with an app in Frankfurt. Retrieved January 18, 2019 .