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Block 3 Assessment in Counselling and Guidance

Unit 3 Counseling And Guidance For Career Planning And Decision Making

1) Define counseling and guidance.

Counseling is defined as an interactive process between a counselor, who is trained to assist, and a client who needs assistance. It is a learning-oriented process that occurs in a one-to-one social environment where a professionally competent counselor uses psychological skills and knowledge to help the client understand and achieve realistically defined goals. It focuses on enhancing the psychological well-being of the client, empowering them to reach their full potential through personal growth, development and self-understanding. Counseling helps clients work through difficult emotional, behavioural or relationship problems, develop a clearer understanding of their concerns and acquire new skills to better manage personal and educational issues.

Guidance involves personal help designed to assist a person in deciding where they want to go, what they want to do, or how to best accomplish their purpose. It helps individuals solve problems that arise in life. Guidance enables individuals to understand their abilities and interests, to develop them, and to relate them to life goals, ultimately reaching a state of competence and self-guidance. It provides learning experiences that enable clients to acquire knowledge, skills and competencies related to making personal, educational and career decisions.

2) Describe the characteristic features of counseling and guidance.

Characteristics of Counseling:

• It is a professional activity, requiring trained personnel.
• It is a process that brings about sequential changes over time, aiming towards a set goal.
• The relationship between counselor and client is built on trust, warmth and understanding.
• It is interactive, involving a trained counselor assisting a client.
• It is focused on personal growth, development and self-understanding.
• It occurs in a confidential meeting, in a quiet room.
• The counselling process depends upon the individual counsellor.

Characteristics of Guidance:

• It involves personal help given by someone.
• It is designed to assist a person in making decisions about their future, solving problems, and understanding themselves.
• It focuses on helping individuals choose what they value most.
• It provides learning experiences to acquire knowledge and skills for making personal, educational and career decisions.
• It includes a range of activities such as informing, advising, counselling, assessing, enabling, advocating and giving feedback.

3) What is career planning?

Career planning is a lifelong process that includes choosing an occupation, getting a job, growing in the job, possibly changing careers, and eventually retiring. It is a process in which an individual decides and chooses an occupation of their interest with the help of a counselor. It involves identifying personal skills and attributes and researching career fields of interest. Career planning helps an individual explore and analyse their interests and capabilities.

4) Discuss the relationship between counseling and career planning.

The relationship between counseling and career planning is that counseling enhances the psychological well-being of the client to facilitate personal growth and self-understanding, which are crucial for making informed career decisions. Career counseling is an interactive process where counselors and clients explore information about the client's background, experiences, interests, and abilities to aid career planning. Counselors help individuals plan their careers in a structured manner, starting with self-assessment. Career counseling is a systematic approach to providing information and advice related to career options.

5) Elucidate the relationship between guidance and career planning.

The relationship between guidance and career planning is that guidance provides learning experiences to enable clients to acquire knowledge and skills related to making career decisions. Career guidance helps individuals pursue the right courses in the right colleges and guides them in choosing suitable careers. Career guidance refers to services and activities intended to assist individuals in making educational, training and occupational choices. Guidance helps individuals manage their careers by providing information, advice, and assessment.

6) What is involved in the process of decision making?

The process of decision making involves the mental processes (cognitive process) resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios. It is a choice between two or more alternatives. The process produces a final choice, which can be an action or an opinion. Problem-solving often involves decision-making.

7) Discuss declaring a decision.

Declaring a decision involves framing the problem. It is about defining what is being decided and why, and what should not be decided. Framing the problem involves reducing complexity by identifying the core issue. Without a good definition of the problem, reaching a high quality decision is not possible.

8) Explain working a decision.

Working a decision involves several components:

• Creating a complete set of alternatives. These alternatives must be mutually exclusive, meaning that they are unique and different from each other.
• Identifying the values against which to make trade-offs. Values are different from attributes.
• Gathering information that describes the value of each alternative.

Important Points