Thato Chwaane
18 March 2008
With so many psychosocial problems affecting the nation, the Botswana Counselling Association (BCA) advocates for the service of counseling to be standardized and regulated.
The director of public affairs of BCA, Ononofile Ramabele said with so many problems affecting the nation and all sorts of counsellors mushrooming from everywhere, it is imperative to have the profession regulated, to rid it of fly by nights and other undesirable elements, whose motivation is money.
Ramabele said in these hard economic times when there is talk of downsizing and restructuring in companies there is a need to counsel those who have suffered the pain of job losses. He said even in cases such as of the CKGR and during the cattle lung disease CBPP, many people needed to be counseled by professionals so that they could cope.
In an era when there is a lot of individualism, when social interaction has been reduced, he said many people need to recognize that there are services available that they can turn to.
Although the association came into being in 2004, it was launched last October. BCA wants to have all trained counsellors licensed, to protect the interest of the service and the counsellors to be recognized. Members of the association are counsellors, psychologists, social workers, guidance and counseling teachers and pastors amongst others.
Ramabele said that these service providers are in-charge of other people's lives. If the service is regulated, it would then become easy to strike off those that give the profession a bad name.
According to Ramabele BCA acts like an umbrella body, it complements the efforts and adds value to what has already been done by others in the area.
He said that their role would be to enhance competency, look at ethics, character of individual practitioners and at their conduct. He they would like to mobilize different stakeholders to come up with a counselling Act.
Currently BCA is setting up an office with a toll free number. It has regional coordinators in districts - in Gaborone, Serowe/Palapye, Francistown, Maun. These coordinators, according to Ramabele, provide them with reports at annual general meetings.
The counsellors volunteer their services, although some have their respective work places.
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