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| Gatekeepers' Roles in the Delivery of Quality Community Counseling Services (Ccs) in Nigeria: Implications for Early Years Counseling
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OLAOGUN, Ganiyu Olakunle, PhD, OLAGUNJU, M.K.O PhD, BUSARI, Moshood Adekunle, PhD, ADELEKE, Sunday Joseph, ERUOBODO, Modupeola, O.
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Abstract:
There are increases in the number of psycho-social, emotional and mental health issues for which people require quality and professional assistance to understand and live with. The negative effects of psycho social disorders on individuals threaten healthy living and survival much more than communicable diseases. Individuals imparted by such events, require support such as can be found in counseling. Counseling should not just be curative, it should be preventive, predictive and compensatory in order that, people are assisted to envisage effects of debilitating conditions on healthy living and be prepared to live through the challenges before and when they occur. The trauma and disappointments associated with events like rape, retirement, anxiety and stress, death, divorce, suicide, unemployment, gender based violence, domestic sexual abuse, ill health, terminal and manageable disease conditions, economic losses, kidnapping and banditry can be mitigated through well structured Community Counseling Services (CCS) . Gatekeepers are critical in establishing such services, manned by professionally trained counselors in the community. Community counseling services will be beneficial only when there are individuals who have information about those who need the service. Gatekeepers, as custodians of the communal 'register' fit into this role, they must be identifiable and supported with skills that can enable them perform optimally. The paper discusses the effects of community counseling services and the need for gatekeepers to be involved in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the service to promote healthy communal life. Early years counseling will equally be promoted in the understanding of challenges that children aged 0-5 encounter and be assisted to overcome them.
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