Education ... communication .... promotion ... gender sensitivity (?)
Specific characteristics that apply to counselling a migrant or a refugee
In the light of the most recent refugee influx to the European countries it is important to mention some specifics of counselling a refugee or a migrant. It is important to understand cross cultures and nationalities in order to do a good job as a counsellor. At the same time, mental health manifests itself differently according to culture, and experience of fleeing the home country or migration is playing an important role in the wellbeing of refugees and migrants. How are we, as counsellors educated in the Western tradition, to evaluate these elements and their interaction - especially when they involve not just cultural differences between races and nationalities, but degrees of suffering and collective oppression that we will probably never experience? The concept of ‘cultural sensitivity’ (which at its most basic has been defined as ‘the counsellor’s sensitivity to cultural variations and the cultural bias of their own approach’) seems inadequate in addressing this combination. Even leaving aside the unimaginable nature of torture and its effects on the mind, anyone working with refugees is faced with stories of multiple losses: extreme social dislocation, enforced exile and cumulative trauma on arrival in the host country (Birkett, 2006).
Even though mental health issues are not in focus of career counselling, youth workers involved in career counselling of refugees and migrants should always have in mind the specifics of the experiences they survived and cultural differences that exist.
For counsellors working with immigrants, it is essential to first understand how and why people immigrate, and what challenges they face once they are here. The term “immigrants” could cover a very diverse population of various categories of persons who move to their host countries for very different reasons and under very different circumstances. For example, individuals may leave their countries of origin to escape political turmoil, war, or natural disaster. To escape poverty or to seek a better economic future could be another purpose for moving to another country. Immigration could also be triggered by reasons such as family reunion, studying abroad, exploring a new way of life, and the need for change in one’s personal life and/or work life. As such, some individuals find themselves being pulled involuntarily into the tide of immigration, while others are intentional in making immigration a voluntary effort in their life-career voyage.
An important resource in understanding these specifics can be a cultural mediator. Cultural mediators as native speakers who understand the culture of home countries can provide a great support to refugees and counsellors.
You, as a youth counselor, should always have in mind the difference in culture, and possible mental health issues that refugees can have as a result of many traumatic experiences they could have on their journey to destination country. Enhancing immigrants’ adjustment in the host country requires some comprehensive consideration that encompasses two general aspects, namely, personal/ social and vocational adjustment
Through the utilization of tools, assessments, and the evaluation of skill levels, career counselors help individuals make decisions about their careers paths, teach job search skills, and work on conflict resolution techniques for application in the workplace. If youth workers want to be good career counselors they need to continuously educate themselves in career counselling and work on developing their:
- Communication Skills. Effective counselors should have excellent communication skills.
- Acceptance. ...
- Empathy. ...
- Problem-Solving Skills. ...
- Rapport-Building Skills. ...
- Flexibility. ...
- Self-Awareness. ...
- Multicultural Competency.
Education:
In most instances, a prospective career counselor may begin his or hers education with a bachelor's degree in any field; however, some master's programs require a bachelor's degree in psychology or a related discipline. ... Counselors in youth organizations should educate themselves if they want to provide career counselling services. They need to have a training in career counselling as well as the psychological aspects and ethics in order to create safe environment for their clients (example> to secure the mental health, to guarantee confidentiality, to use the right terminology and to have a right approach).!!!
The career counselors for migrants and refugees working in youth organizations should know how to :
When providing career counselling to migrants and refugees, youth organizations need to have the support of translators: professional or volunteers or/and use online platforms with automatic translation; the translators can and is recommended to be recruited among the refugees. How to do it: develop the network to find translators, outsource to the language universities to find young students that would volunteer and work with youth in their free time. Open Internship positions for them in order to get experience in the relative field.
Youth organization providing services for career counselling and labour market informing - need to be active on social media. If you are thinking on supporting labour market inclusion of young migrants and refugees, we encourage you to: make profiles on all relevant social media pages and engage someone to post /update them regularly. Promote yourself and the services you offer. ..
Counselors should be gender-responsive. Women migrants and women self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) remain largely unseen and under-researched by the management community. It seems that many companies and industries do not respect the authority of women, let alone women from abroad. Because women‟s career decisions are perhaps more influenced by factors such as non-work responsibilities, the needs of significant others and the fulfillment of personal values, the tradability of their acquired career capital may be even lower than that of their male counterparts. Women‟s career choices prior to migration are also guided by their role identities as embedded in various social networks . Structural constraints affecting women‟s career decisions and eventual career paths such as organisational and occupational demography, socio-political context and the culture of the host country may pose significant limitations to the career paths of migrant women (Volpe and Murphy, 2011). Attitudes toward women, discrimination and stereotypes and prejudice may form further barriers to the success of migrants in the host country (Tharmaseelan et al., 2010), where women surrender themselves to a negative self-fulfilling prophecy ending in a negative spiral which may lead to their opting out (Wood, 2008). Women migrants and refugees can be affected by discrimination and segregation, exclusive staffing policies that do not provide many opportunities to foreigners and women, economic circumstances, or the fact that career capital obtained in the home country is not accepted as relevant in the host country. Gender responsiveness is critical to counseling and guidance programmes in promoting equity and gender equality.
In the light of the most recent refugee influx to the European countries it is important to mention some specifics of counselling a refugee or a migrant. It is important to understand cross cultures and nationalities in order to do a good job as a counsellor. At the same time, mental health manifests itself differently according to culture, and experience of fleeing the home country or migration is playing an important role in the wellbeing of refugees and migrants. How are we, as counsellors educated in the Western tradition, to evaluate these elements and their interaction - especially when they involve not just cultural differences between races and nationalities, but degrees of suffering and collective oppression that we will probably never experience? The concept of ‘cultural sensitivity’ (which at its most basic has been defined as ‘the counsellor’s sensitivity to cultural variations and the cultural bias of their own approach’) seems inadequate in addressing this combination. Even leaving aside the unimaginable nature of torture and its effects on the mind, anyone working with refugees is faced with stories of multiple losses: extreme social dislocation, enforced exile and cumulative trauma on arrival in the host country (Birkett, 2006).
Even though mental health issues are not in focus of career counselling, youth workers involved in career counselling of refugees and migrants should always have in mind the specifics of the experiences they survived and cultural differences that exist.
For counsellors working with immigrants, it is essential to first understand how and why people immigrate, and what challenges they face once they are here. The term “immigrants” could cover a very diverse population of various categories of persons who move to their host countries for very different reasons and under very different circumstances. For example, individuals may leave their countries of origin to escape political turmoil, war, or natural disaster. To escape poverty or to seek a better economic future could be another purpose for moving to another country. Immigration could also be triggered by reasons such as family reunion, studying abroad, exploring a new way of life, and the need for change in one’s personal life and/or work life. As such, some individuals find themselves being pulled involuntarily into the tide of immigration, while others are intentional in making immigration a voluntary effort in their life-career voyage.
An important resource in understanding these specifics can be a cultural mediator. Cultural mediators as native speakers who understand the culture of home countries can provide a great support to refugees and counsellors.
You, as a youth counselor, should always have in mind the difference in culture, and possible mental health issues that refugees can have as a result of many traumatic experiences they could have on their journey to destination country. Enhancing immigrants’ adjustment in the host country requires some comprehensive consideration that encompasses two general aspects, namely, personal/ social and vocational adjustment
Through the utilization of tools, assessments, and the evaluation of skill levels, career counselors help individuals make decisions about their careers paths, teach job search skills, and work on conflict resolution techniques for application in the workplace. If youth workers want to be good career counselors they need to continuously educate themselves in career counselling and work on developing their:
- Communication Skills. Effective counselors should have excellent communication skills.
- Acceptance. ...
- Empathy. ...
- Problem-Solving Skills. ...
- Rapport-Building Skills. ...
- Flexibility. ...
- Self-Awareness. ...
- Multicultural Competency.
Education:
In most instances, a prospective career counselor may begin his or hers education with a bachelor's degree in any field; however, some master's programs require a bachelor's degree in psychology or a related discipline. ... Counselors in youth organizations should educate themselves if they want to provide career counselling services. They need to have a training in career counselling as well as the psychological aspects and ethics in order to create safe environment for their clients (example> to secure the mental health, to guarantee confidentiality, to use the right terminology and to have a right approach).!!!
The career counselors for migrants and refugees working in youth organizations should know how to :
- interview clients to get employment history, educational background and career goals
- give and interpret tests designed to determine the interests, aptitudes and abilities of clients
- identify barriers to work and help clients with matters such as job readiness skills, job search strategies, writing resumés and preparing for job interviews
- assess need for assistance such as rehabilitation, financial aid or further vocational training and refer clients to the appropriate services
- provide established workers with information on maintaining a job or moving within an organization, dealing with job dissatisfaction or making a mid-career change
- collect labour market information for clients regarding job openings, entry and skill requirements and other occupational information
- provide consulting services to community groups and agencies, and to organizations that offer community-based career planning resources
When providing career counselling to migrants and refugees, youth organizations need to have the support of translators: professional or volunteers or/and use online platforms with automatic translation; the translators can and is recommended to be recruited among the refugees. How to do it: develop the network to find translators, outsource to the language universities to find young students that would volunteer and work with youth in their free time. Open Internship positions for them in order to get experience in the relative field.
Youth organization providing services for career counselling and labour market informing - need to be active on social media. If you are thinking on supporting labour market inclusion of young migrants and refugees, we encourage you to: make profiles on all relevant social media pages and engage someone to post /update them regularly. Promote yourself and the services you offer. ..
Counselors should be gender-responsive. Women migrants and women self-initiated expatriates (SIEs) remain largely unseen and under-researched by the management community. It seems that many companies and industries do not respect the authority of women, let alone women from abroad. Because women‟s career decisions are perhaps more influenced by factors such as non-work responsibilities, the needs of significant others and the fulfillment of personal values, the tradability of their acquired career capital may be even lower than that of their male counterparts. Women‟s career choices prior to migration are also guided by their role identities as embedded in various social networks . Structural constraints affecting women‟s career decisions and eventual career paths such as organisational and occupational demography, socio-political context and the culture of the host country may pose significant limitations to the career paths of migrant women (Volpe and Murphy, 2011). Attitudes toward women, discrimination and stereotypes and prejudice may form further barriers to the success of migrants in the host country (Tharmaseelan et al., 2010), where women surrender themselves to a negative self-fulfilling prophecy ending in a negative spiral which may lead to their opting out (Wood, 2008). Women migrants and refugees can be affected by discrimination and segregation, exclusive staffing policies that do not provide many opportunities to foreigners and women, economic circumstances, or the fact that career capital obtained in the home country is not accepted as relevant in the host country. Gender responsiveness is critical to counseling and guidance programmes in promoting equity and gender equality.