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  • As an international non-profit organization with a humanitarian mission, IAC promotes well-being, respect, social justice, and peace. We are deeply saddened and concerned by the recent violence in the Israel-Hamas conflict and the tragic loss of lives across the region. IAC wants to express solidarity with our counselling colleagues and the communities you serve around the world. More than ever, we believe mental health is a human right and decry and deplore the violence and brutality that threatens it.

    Acknowledging the importance of culturally relevant counselling practices around the world, IAC has assembled a few resources for counsellors who are serving those affected by the conflict, both directly and indirectly. We have included resources that offer support in the face of bigotry, especially anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, and the need to cope with a news cycle full of violent photos and images. Please reach out if you have further suggestions of resources for your peers. We will continue to add to this page. Thank you for being part of our international counselling community and for the essential humanitarian work that you do. 

    ACA article: Crisis Counseling: A Blend of Safety and Compassion

     

    ACA article: Prioritizing Trauma-Informed Care

    ACA article: Treatment strategies for race-based traumatic stress

    ACA web page: Trauma and Disaster Mental Health

    BACP toolkit: The EDI Coalition toolkit

    BBC article: Israel Gaza war: History of the conflict explained

    Berkeley Greater Good magazine article: Resources for Peace and Conflict

    Berkeley Greater Good magazine article: Six Tips to Avoid Being Overwhelmed by the News

    Childline web page: Worrying about Israel and Gaza

    CNN article: How to protect your mental health while keeping tabs on the Israel-Hamas war

    CNN Podcast: How to Cope with The Current News Cycle

    Common Sense Media: How to Talk to Kids About Violence, Crime, and War 

    Learning for Justice: Discussing War and Conflict: Resources for Educators, Parents and Caregivers

    National Association of Independent Schools (U.S.): Resources for Educators About the Conflict in the Middle East

     

    Northwestern University: Self-Care Strategies for Managing Secondary Traumatic Stress

     

    NPR article: How to help humanitarian efforts in Israel and Gaza
     

    SAMSHA fact sheet: Tips for Survivors: Coping with Grief after a Disaster or Traumatic Event

    SAMSHA web page: Compassion Fatigue and Self-care for Crisis Counselors

    SAMSHA web page: Incidents of Mass Violence

    UNICEF web page: How to talk to your children about conflict and war

    WHO free publication: Mental health of refugees and migrants: risk and protective factors and access to care

    WHO web article: Five key themes for improved mental health care for refugees and migrants

    WHO Fact Sheet: Mental Health in Emergencies

    WHO Fact Sheet: Mental Health and Forced Displacement

     

    Know of other helpful sources to share on this page? Please email Lisa Isenman.

    17/10/2023
  •  
    by Dominc Nsona, Malawi Association for Counselling President and IAC Africa Regional Representaive
     
    Malawi was one of the worst hit countries by Cyclone Freddy. "We have nothing left; we lost everything: our families, our children and parents, everything," said a representative of one camp for survivors. "Today I have to take alcohol to sleep," he continued.
     

    In Malawi, the cyclone was devastating to communities, with a state of disaster being declared in 14 districts that were severely affected. Over 500,000 people were displaced by the storms and the death toll rose to over 1,000, while more than another 500 people were reported missing. Public infrastructure such as schools, health facilities, and district and main roads were damaged in all affected districts.

    Behind each of these shocking figures is a story of a person, a family, a home washed away. 

    As in most countries faced with a similar situation, partners rushed to provide support food, shelter and clothing, the basic needs for the body. The soul, i.e. emotions and feelings, however, was mostly left unattended. The need for counselling services was huge.
     
    The Malawi Association for Counselling (MAC) collaborated with the All-Africa Conference: Sister to Sister (AAC:SS), a team of professional psychosocial counsellors, to provide needed support to the survivors. The goal was to access technical support in the area of counselling for the sisters and plan to visit the camps. MAC provided an orientation, an initial assessment to understand the areas that needed support for the counsellors since some of them were trained many years before. Following the orientation was a plan for counselling activities at the camps. Selection included hard to reach and never visited camps, among others.
     
    During the visits, survivors shared their experiences and the deep pain of the loss of their loved ones, property, and land. The counsellors provided a chance for them to narrate their lived experiences, including watching their loved ones die, houses collapse, property being washed away, and land being filled with sand, rocks and wood. The survivors expressed their feelings towards themselves, the government, and partner organizations. They were safe and free to cry, and they sang funeral songs, something they were unable to do during the burial rites of their loved ones. The counsellors travelled to the burial sites with survivors.
     
    Traditionally in Malawi there is an expectation when one visits somone encountering life difficulties, that the visitor will tell the person what to do. This is one of the challenges the counsellors faced. The counsellors, however, were able to provide support and encouragement to move forward. AAC:SS provided for the logistics to travel and MAC supported technical aspects of the visit. The end result was that the survivors were visited and psychosocial support was provided. This is the importance of collaboration and partnership.
    Malawi Counselling
    28/06/2023
  • IAC's Counselling Practitioners Roundtable, a forum for international practitioners to come together to discuss practice and research across multicultural contexts, met on May 26 with participants from around the world.

    After introductions, IAC Counselling Practitioners’ Roundtable Chair Nate Perron shared IAC updates including activities with UN and national association partners, information on IAC’s international conference in Naples in 2024, a summary of redefined world regions, and review of the Universal Declaration of Ethical Principles for Professional Counselors.

    Members contributed their research and expertise on: 

     ...and more.

     The next meeting will be at the end of July on Zoom (date tbd), and all IAC members are welcome. Contact Nate Perron to learn more.

    IAC Practitioners Roundtable
    30/05/2023
  • IAC Europe is one of six active IAC World Regions. All of the major counselling associations in Europe are engaged with IAC Europe.

    Our Regional aims are: 

    • Obtaining Legal Recognition for the Profession in the Region (where not in place).

    • Agreeing Region-Wide Counselling Standards.

    • Supporting National Association Aims.

    • Advocacy for the Counselling Profession with Regional (e.g, the European Union) and U.N. Bodies.

    • Assisting in the development of counselling in countries (where there is currently none).

    Read more about IAC Europe HERE 

    Regional Contact for IAC Europe: Ms. Suzanne Mohnani: suzanne.mohnani@hotmail.com

    IAC Europe – The European Branch of IAC
    28/05/2023
  • by Heather Anne Keyes

    As anyone who has ever been on the business end of a registration or a budget spreadsheet for a conference can attest, it´s not the same as being a participant. So, after about eight solid years of organizing national and international conferences for and with Gestalt therapists, I was still hungry to actually meet my colleagues. As someone who can geek out about human beings, I needed to come up with a socially acceptable way of exploring some of those more intimate, personal spaces without making it look like I was trying to date my way through the world´s therapist population.

    After a very little elaborate thought, Humans of Gestalt was born from a list of questions I decided I would like to have conversations with people about. A little graphic design magic, a few clicks on youtube, and the buying of www.humansofgestalt.com later, we had a primitive non-podcast. Humans has now grown over more than 3 years into the nearly 500 episode documentary narrative project that it is now in somewhere between 8-11 different languages and has been viewed 195 thousand times for 29.4 thousand hours by people in 74 countries.

    The timing of the project´s creation was perfect, as little did we all know how important connection over Zoom was going to become in early 2020, and indeed the relationships between the growing team of volunteer interviewers, viewers and interview guests has been enriching and rewarding beyond words, especially through the pandemic. I have had the bittersweet experiences of attending virtual memorial services for guests I had only just met as well as the satisfaction of feeling like I had managed to capture tiny fragments of dear friends and mentors before their passing as well. We have all read words of appreciation from around the world from people who through the project have been able to see their teachers, friends and loved ones in a new light through the interviews.  I am in the process of waiting to see if there is a space in the conferencing world to present the project as a different perspective on the Humans behind the book-writing, lecture-giving, theory-popping academics and clinicians we usually get to meet.

    Given the timeframe of the evolution of Gestalt therapy, I have also had the privilege of gathering remembrances of one of the founders directly from her students around the world and of hearing from people who watched the whole process take its baby steps and test drives in their living rooms and over dinners and drinks. It has been an immensely validating and gratifying experience to find such resonance within the international therapeutic community with my own human curiosity, and will be something which continues to shape my path as a project-creator, Gestalt therapist, and international Human for years to come.  It has made the world seem smaller and bigger at the same time, and has created a deep sense of warm familiarity among people who used to be simply colleagues or strangers.

    Finally, but not to diminish the magnitude of the feat, Humans has been uniquely able to intentionally center voices, faces, practices and identities of Gestalt therapists who are not typically on the (white/anglo/hetero/cis normative) speaker lists for big-ticket events, and has opened spaces in radical ways by holding them the same way for beginner students as we have for the "elders" in the field. It has been a gift to watch the project be carried through so many languages and cultures, allowing us to witness a kaleidoscopic display of diversity at work and play. I have no idea where Humans of Gestalt will go, but you are welcome to follow us as we figure that out. Learn more at www.humansofgestalt.com.

    Humans of Gestalt
    02/05/2023
  • On Saturday the 1st of April 2023 an IAC Association's Roundtable Meeting took place in Toronto, Canada. Attendees were from Associations attending the American Counseling Association's (ACA) Conference and Expo 2023. The Association's RoundTable provided an ideal opportunity for the leaders of member associations to meet and discuss the issues that impact our profession worldwide. At the meeting we heard country updates and updated the attendees on IAC activities. Discussion centred on how best we can partner and assist in the development of counselling in countries and regions. We particularly welcomed participation by new associations and organisations. Read More HERE

    01/05/2023
  •  

    by William G. Nicoll, Ph.D.

     

    A report published some three decades ago by the Center for Social Policy at Harvard University concluded that our social service systems were failing to adequately address the needs of at-risk youth (Weissbound, 1991). The primary reason, they concluded, was that social service professionals (mental health, drug treatment, medical health, educators, social workers, and so forth) tend to function largely in isolation from one another and within all too narrow and rigid areas of focus or concern.

     

    Schools focus on academic achievement, health agencies on physical illness, drug programs on drug abuse, mental health professionals on mental-emotional disorders and so forth. Unfortunately, child and adolescent problems seldom present in such neat, tidy, and distinct categories. A much wider lens is required to fully comprehend the involvement of multiple contributing factors. Youth daily navigate through multiple cultural environments: their family culture, school culture, the classroom cultures set by varying teachers, peer and community cultures, socioeconomic cultures, religious cultures, and so forth. All impact healthy, or not so healthy, development.

     

    As an example of this complexity, an adolescent female may fail to attend school and thus get failing grades and eventually quit because she must stay home and care for her younger sibling due to parental drug/alcohol abuse, parental work schedule, or domestic violence. This, in turn, may continue a multi-generational pattern of low education, unemployment, poverty, depression, substance abuse, and physical and mental health problems. Or a 12-year-old female dealing with parental neglect and impoverished living conditions is bullied at school. This results in her fighting with the bully and consequently the school enforces an automatic policy of a 5-day school suspension (a proven counterproductive discipline strategy). While suspended, this girl finds pseudo-affection/connection with a 17-year-old male drop-out resulting in her pregnancy and becoming a mother by age 13.

     

    An additional example is that of a 13-year-old male failing in school and being routinely reprimanded for failing to turn in assignments or complete schoolwork. The school counselor focuses on teaching him skills for maintaining an “assignment notebook” to help him keep track of his homework. However, the fact that he lives with an alcoholic grandfather, and cares for a bed-ridden, dying grandmother while his military father is abroad in a combat zone and his mother is in prison is ignored as a factor in his school adjustment difficulties.

     

    Similarly, a child presenting with diarrhea and stomach aches is referred to a nurse and is given medications. The etiological factors beneath the physical symptoms such as emotional distress caused by divorce and peer bullying are left unaddressed. All too often our social service systems  treat each person and each symptom in isolation. As the Harvard study concluded, it is all too often a “program for every person, a treatment program for every problem.” Much too often, little or no consideration is given to possible multi-etiological dynamics involved in child and adolescent adjustment difficulties.

     

    Indeed, at times, the understanding of child/adolescent difficulties begins to remind one of the Buddhist and Hindu fable of the seven blind men and the elephant. As the seven blind men come across an elephant for the first time and seek to identify what an elephant is, each focuses on a separate body part instead of the whole. Consequently, each is paradoxically both correct in his/her conclusions from the limited scope of exploration but also incorrect in fully understanding what an elephant is. Counsellors too, often fall into this “too narrow a lens” trap!

     

    Widening Our Counselling Lens?

    Counsellors would likely be better equipped to design appropriate prevention and intervention programs for children and adolescents if their training included assessing the multiple cultural contexts impacting children’s lives (i.e., widening their viewing lens). These include: the family system, school cultures, classroom environments, community culture, and peer culture as well as how these systems, in turn, impact one another in both productive and counterproductive ways.

     

    The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) research of recent years adds to the importance of addressing family, school, and community cultures in examining social-emotional adjustment difficulties (Anda & Felleti,1998; Barth et al., 2008; Pierce et al., 2022).

     

    Indeed, research has consistently indicated that family dynamics account for more of the variance in student achievement than all the instructional variables combined and significantly impacts motivation, self-esteem, and behavior (Goode & Brophy, 1986; Ishak et al., 2012; Steinberg et al., 1992). Moreover, studies have also documented that school culture, not curriculum or organizational strategies, is crucial in determining school quality, student success, and social-emotional adjustment (Bayer & Hurriyat, 2021; Goodlad, 1989; Moses, 2019; Resnick et al., 1997; Rutter et al., 1983).

     

    How can any counsellor then effectively assess and intervene in addressing child/adolescent adjustment difficulties without some training in the role of family systems/family counseling, school culture effects, and community culture impacts on youth development? Yet, we continue training in isolated specialization areas (e.g., family, school, mental health). And, what of the need for other social service professionals to be trained in basic counselling skills? Should not counselling organizations and university programs seek to offer all social service front-line professionals training in basic counselling knowledge and skills? As stated in that 30+ year old report, “It is still the atypical worker, and not the typical one, who can draw on some knowledge in all of these areas” (Weissbound, 1991, p. 9).

     

    Avoiding the Narrow Lens of Guilds and Silos

    Farmers store their harvests in separate silos, one for each product (wheat, rice, corn, etc.). Human service professionals, including counsellors, are very similarly trained only within their respective “professional silos.” Such separated training programs for those engaged in promoting the wellbeing of children and adolescents (mental health counsellors, school counselors, family  counselors, teachers, administrators, special education teachers, social workers, law enforcement, health professionals, and so forth) lead to the all too narrow, mistaken perspectives of the blind men and the elephant. Each is educated in isolated departmental “silos.” But, the complexity of the problems and issues impacting youth suggest a need for the “cross fertilization” of professional knowledge as well as experiences in collaborative assessment and development of preventive and intervention programs across the human services disciplines.

     

    In past centuries, professional guilds were formed to protect professional standards. Guilds served the function of reducing competition and protecting the economic and social status interests of those in that guild. However, such benefits to guild members were not necessarily always beneficial to the general public. Perhaps as human services professionals, we have fallen into a similar pattern of training in isolated silos and forming guilds that can also have adverse effects for the public.

     

    So, the questions become those of: How do we advocate for the counselling profession (an IAC objective) while simultaneously seeking to improve people’s lives and well-being by sharing our professional knowledge with other “front line” workers? How do we balance the need for both highly trained counselling services while also helping to provide needed services in those areas where such training is absent, yet mental health services (preventive and intervention) are much needed? And, finally, how do we begin breaking down our own intra-professional counselling specialization silos and widen the viewing lens of all counsellors?

     

    William G. Nicoll, Ph.D. assists in the development of IAC professional development events and, along with his wife, Monica, co-directs the Resilience Counseling & Training Center - www.resiliencecounselingcenter.com.

    different cultural contexts for children
    26/04/2023
  •  

    IAC represented the counseling profession at a UNESCO meeting of partner organizations on 17 April to discuss ways to advance ongoing collaborative efforts. In honor of World Press Freedom Day, the meeting focused on freedom of expression.
     
    IAC Secretary Nate Perron underscored the impact that challenges to freedom of expression have on mental health and called for suggestions of ways that IAC can collaborate further with UNESCO and partner organizations to support the need for mental health and counseling for individuals of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities.
     
    IAC continues to explore additional ways in which we can represent the counseling profession in supporting the efforts of other UNESCO partner NGOs.
    IAC at UNESCO
    26/04/2023
  •  

    IAC was invited to send a representative to participate in a World Health Organization (WHO) training in Tunisia March 14-17. The training introduced EQUIP, a new mental health product that WHO is promoting to continue advancing the application of basic counseling and relational skills for mental health helpers and professionals. The 40+ representatives included experts from a variety of NGOs and world health associations. The participants provided feedback throughout the experience, and WHO offered clear efforts to improve the tool and understand the needs related to implementation of the tool across cultures.

     

    The purpose and goals of the EQUIP are directly aligned with the objectives and mission of IAC, and summarized in the IAC vision: a world where counselling available to all. The EQUIP tool offers a thoughtful and practical way for training basic counseling and helping skills. This offers a promising strategy to make a significant impact in addressing global mental health needs, especially where professional services are limited or non-existent.

     

    EQUIP is a competency-based program designed by WHO and UNICEF to enhance helping language to address mental health and wellness needs in ways that reflect the core elements of clinical mental health skills. The tool was developed particularly out of the work of Dr. Brandon Kohrt, psychiatrist and professor at George Washington University. The concepts related to this competency tool offer descriptions of counseling skills that are common to the profession, yet this resource offers operationalized descriptions to the competencies that are pertinent to mental health professionals, helpers, and counselors offering support in a variety of contexts.

     

    The foundational tool of EQUIP is the ENACT tool that provides systematic, concrete supervision strategies and descriptions. Additional resources are available, which build off this initial strategy, including assessment tools, role-play narratives, role play videos, and others. EQUIP is a way for organizations to have some degree of understanding of training for competency among the unlicensed workforce with basic concepts, but it also offers deeper competency measures to enhance greater knowledge and depth of insight.

     

    The WHO designs all their tools (including EQUIP) to be open access. EQUIP is a research-based tool that provides standardized training in easy-to-understand modules that explore skills within the context of role play scenarios. The material offers a strong rationale for why this relational and focused method can enhance necessary areas of development that may need further refinement. EQUIP focuses on 15 areas of competency to provide benchmarks to identify ways that practice ‘do no harm’ principles, and they provide other developing and advanced approaches within these target areas of competency. This open access resource is available on the WHO website: https://equipcompetency.org/en-gb, solely for the purposes of advancing the knowledge and application of appropriate clinical, counseling, and helping skills.

    IAC collaborates on WHO's EQUIP tool
    25/04/2023
  • LivingWorks and the International Association for Counselling (IAC) are pleased to announce their partnership in promoting suicide prevention on an international scale. LivingWorks is the leading provider of suicide prevention training programs, including Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST), safeTALK and Start. These evidence-based programs empower individuals and communities to identify and respond to individuals who may be experiencing thoughts of suicide. LivingWorks has trained over 2 million people in more than 35 countries and is supported by over 50 peer-reviewed research evaluations and studies. Through this partnership, LivingWorks and IAC aim to bring together their expertise and resources to create a shared vision of a world safer from suicide. Click HERE to read on..

    21/03/2023