Innovative Approaches to Youth Information and Counselling

Prof. em. dr. Willy FachéDepartment of Education and Psychology

Ghent University - Belgium

Focus

This presentation focuses on the innovative services set up for the specific purpose of giving social support to young people by means of information and counselling.

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Content

• Early years• Three types of comprehensive youth information and

counselling centres - arguments for and against • Working principles• Three organisational concepts • Preventive actions and advocacy function• Outreaching• Staffing• Evaluation• Policy of authorities

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Early years• These innovative services originated in USA, Canada

and Europe in the sixties.

• All these services developed atypical, non-traditional or experimental methods of dealing with youth questions and problems.

• They develop as an alternative or competing form explicitly or implicitly criticising established services, who are to bureaucratic or who are to much psychological or therapeutic oriented or who do not see young people’s needs. Some of the centres focus on drug related problems.

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Mutual influences

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Free clinic (San Francisco)

( 1967)

Switchboard (San Francisco)

(1967)

JAC Amsterdam(Mc Gillavry, 1969)

Young people’s consultation centre (London)

(Laufer, 1961)

JAC Eindhoven(1971)

JAC Rotterdam(1970)

JAC Antwerpen(J. Mertens 1972)

JAC Leuven(1972)

Info Jeugd Gent(W. Faché, 1966)

Release Amsterdam (1970)

Release London (1967)

(C. Coon & R. Harris)

A comprehensive type of service most appropriate for young people

• Will usually be necessary as a first resort or a last resort, somewhere to go when you do not know where to get information or help, somewhere to go when other sources fail.

• Problems are not always so specific that you need a specialised service.

• Youngsters may be unable to formulate their distress in terms of a specific problem.

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Three types of comprehensive youth information and counselling centres

1. Integrated youth information and counselling services

2. Youth information services3. Youth counselling services

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What are the arguments for and against each of the alternatives?

1. Integrated youth information and counselling services

+ Requests for information may, unforeseen lead to a counselling conversation .

+ One limits the number of situations in which youngsters have to be referred to another organisation.

The realisation of an integration demands a number of conditions: • Knowledge base of frontline workers• Large number of workers and their expertise

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2. Youth information services

+ Possibility of helping a large amount of young people with a relatively limited staff.

- Young people who need counselling have to be referred to a counselling centre.

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3. Youth counselling services

+ The counselling is hindered when large numbers of youngsters with requests for information visit the centre at the same time.

- Can keep young people away from requesting assistance, because they are afraid of being stigmatized as problem cases when entering a Youth Counselling Service.

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Working principles

1. Any young person may walk in with any problem2. Immediate help at the moment client asks for it3. Client-centred approach4. Self determination - the right of client autonomy5. Confidentiality - anonymous help6. Charging no fees 7. Independence

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1. Any young person may walk in with any problem

Client does not need to make a self-diagnosis before calling upon a service. A precise definition of intake criteria has the following negative effects on the client: •Agencies focusing on specific problems mostly label their clients •“Where to go with which problems" constitutes a problem in itself

Problem for centres:•Attract clients who often cannot find help at any established agency•Are faced with a wide variety of persons and problems

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2. Immediate help at the moment the client asks for it

Concept of crisis intervention (Lindeman & Caplan)

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3. Client-centred approach

Instead of fitting the client's question within the method of the service, the counsellor takes his cue from the need of the client, and together with the client tries to find a solution for the client's problem in creative and innovative way.

The client is the real principle, even when minor clients are concerned.

Clients often do not raise confidential problems during the first contact.

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Working principles (2)4. Self determination - the right of client autonomy

5. Confidentiality - anonymous help

6. Charging no fees

7. Independence

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Three organisational concepts

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1. A team of front-line workers operates in a rotation system for the intake of any client with any problem

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2. A consultant is used by the intaker in order to help him with some aspects of a case

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Client

Consultant insideThe YICC

Consultant outsideThe YICC

3. When the intaker feels unable to provide appropriate assistance, then he can refer client to an experienced colleague inside or outside the agency.

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Inside referral Outside referral

The worker tries to sustain an open relation with the client he refers to a specialist by telling the client that he may always return "if it does not work".

In certain centres, referral of clients occurs so frequently that they operate rather as switchboard in the network of helping services.

Other services invite specialised professionals (such as a lawyer, a physician, a career counsellor) to come once a week, on a fixed day and time, and help young people with specific problems.

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Preventive actions

• “Do-it-yourself” material in the form of leaflets on contraceptives, unemployment benefits, drugs etc.

• Other centres have combined information by means of leaflets with radio broadcasts.

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Advocacy function Problems of clients are frequently rooted in society.

Helping young people only successful if society changes.

Centres greatly differ in their vision of their role in relation to society inducing problems:

• Assistance to young people and social action are integrated • Assistance to young people and social action run parallel • Drawing attention to societal problems as a parallel task of

workers • Only assistance to young people

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Outreaching

Youth workers in youth clubs, teachers are able to use the staff at youth information and counselling services as consultants.

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Staffing• Centres range from those with a small group of volunteers

providing a service on one or two evenings a week.• More substantial agencies staffed either by paid full-time

and part-time workers.• By larger teams of agency-trained volunteers co-ordinated

by paid workers.

In agencies focusing on counselling, there is a predominance of social workers, psychologists and educators.

Some centres use young people as peer-group counsellors backed up by professional counsellors.

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Evaluation• Contribution to denunciation of specific types of

problems and societal causes of particular problems that have been ignored by traditional helping agencies.

• They have introduced numerous innovations in the field of counselling and informing methods.

• Many of these innovations were later adapted by the established services as well.

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Innovations (1/2)

• Immediate assistance when it is requested, whereas it was normal to make appointments for a specific day and time.

• Anonymous assistance instead of traditional questions about name, address and age that were the first statements in a counselling session.

• The client is the one who defines the task of the worker, whereas it was normal that parents of minor did so.

• Assistance free of charge.

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Innovations (2/2)

• Attention paid to societal causes of particular problems instead of looking for individual inadequacies and adapting the client to societal demands.

• Continuing responsibility of worker in case of referral of client instead of being content to simply refer client elsewhere.

• Treating client as a competent person in relation to his own life situation instead of being patronising.

• Not using too specific intake criteria.• Systematic attention paid to preventive strategies.

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Policy of authorities

How can they effectively support these new forms of servicing through policy measures so that the latter could offer qualitative assistance and continue to be sources of innovation?

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