Counseling involves a planned intervention between a counselor and child to help the child address and resolve difficulties. The counseling process begins with identifying the child and problem, building rapport, exploring the problem, formulating goals, implementing a plan of action, and ending the process with follow up. Key principles of counseling include establishing trust, confidentiality, self-determination, a positive approach, empathy, and focusing on the child's feelings and perspective. When interviewing children, the process should be made less scary by finding a quiet place, allowing time, listening, observing non-verbal cues, and having other children present if needed for comfort.

1. COUNSELING AND
INTERVIEWING CHILDREN.
WHAT IS COUNSELING?

2. Counseling is a psychosocial intervention for
children who behave “differently", expressing or
indicating feelings of pain, sadness, suffering,
helplesness,anger etc.counseling guides them
to a state of balance from which they can
handle and improve the situation. The purpose
is to help the person to change or improve the
present problem or situation.

3. Counseling is a planned intervention between the
child/victim and counselor/helper to assist the child
to alter,improve or resolve his/her present
bahaviour,difficulty or discomfort. Its the process of
helping the child to discover the coping mechanisms
useful, in the past, how to develop new coping
mechanisms.

4. Counseling is about strengthening the
ability of the child to solve problems and
make decisions and is different from
giving advice.you,the counselor, are
generally not an advisor or person of
authority in the counseling relationship.
The process involves a mutual
responsibility between you and the child.

5. NON COUNSELING APPROACH:-
 Ordering
 Commanding
 Pressuring
 Warning
 Threatening
 Judging
 Openly showing disbelief
 Lack of interest,labeling,criticising.

6. WHY COUNSELING?
1.Counseling is often an effective way of dealing with
psychosocial and emotional problems of children in
especially difficult circumstances. Any one(with
training) can do it, as long as you have the right
attitudes and skills.
2.Behaviour is often an open expression of feelings.
In order to change problematic behaviour,counseling
requires dealing with feelings.

7. Why counseling cont..
3.Psychological health is an important part of child
survival, protection and general development.
4.Children have the right to have a childhood that is as
problem free as is possible, it should also be the adults
responsibility to care for and guide the child and help
him/her cope with any difficult situation.
5.Helping children especially in difficult circumstances
requires many different approaches. Food and shelter are
essential but may not be sufficient if the child has to do
with trauma. Counseling focuses on the child's feelings,
thoughts and ideas that are essential too.

8. why counseling cont.…
6.Counseling encourages and assists the child to find a
solution for his/her problem/situation.

9. THE COUNSELING PROCESS.
1.Identification of the child & or problem.
The type of intervention should be relevant to the
problems presented and should be based on the
criteria for intakes such as, the expressed need for
intervention, emotional imbalance, psychosocial
problems, disabled daily functioning due to such
problems

10. 2.Beginning the counseling process.
-Set the atmosphere and build the rapport with the
child.
-Introduce yourself
-Explain counseling
-Ask for the child's expectation.
3.Getting at the problem/assessment.
-explore and structure the problem
explore the positive qualities such as strengths of the
child e.g. self confidence, straight forwardness, quick
learners, caring for each other, good decision makers,
observing and coping behaviours.

11. -Understand the situation/problem
-Create mutual awareness about the problem.
4.Formulating goals counseling/helping plans.
-formulate the child's preferred outcomes.
-specify and explore these goals.
-Prioritize which goal to start with.
-Specify and explore goals.
-Decide the relevance of the goals together.

12. Counseling process cont..
5.Implementation of counseling goals and
decisions.
-Stimulate solutions or strategies for change.
-Discuss advantages and disadvantages of these.
-Formulate and implement a plan of action.
-Work with/on coping strategies and work with social
and cultural resources.
-Look at underlying causes of the problem.

13. 6.Ending the counseling process.
-Discuss reasons for termination.
-Summarize the entire counseling process.
-Provide feedback and focus on positive elements.
7.Follow up.

14. BASIC PRINCIPLES OF COUNSELING
1.Trust: Counselors can not help a child if there is no
element of trust. Before moving into counseling, establish
trust. Children feel free to express and share their
concerns when they can trust somebody.
2.Confidentiality: Respect the privacy of the child. Assure
him/her that every thing will be kept in strict confidence.
Confidentiality in the entire process of counseling is very
important and enhances the dignity of the child.

15. Principles cont.…
3. Self-determination: the child can make his/her own
decisions about life, as much as can be realistically
possible. The role of the counselor is to provide OPTIONS
and OPPORTUNITY, or to help children explore
alternatives best suited to his/her capability and
situations(coping strategies).
4.Positive approach: emphasize what the child does well
and focus on approval instead of disapproval. Reward
children when they do things well or when they make an
effort.

16. principles cont…
5.Focus on feelings: it is often essential to discuss the
child's feelings(both open & hidden ones) to help him or
her.
6.Giving empathy: this is the ability to enter the
perceptual world of the other personate see the world as
they see it.it’s important to understand the child and his/her
problems from his/her point of view. This provides
emotional support.
7.The counselor must be genuine: the counselor should
be completely him/herself and emotionally balanced.

17. Principles cont…
9.Warmth and openness.
10.Conversation skills. The counselor should be
able to summarize, reflect and be an active listener
etc.
11.Focus: the counselor should be focused about the
objectives and steps of the counseling process,
counseling is not just chatting with children.

18. Principles cont…
12.child’s perspective. Respect children's situations
and expressions, take them seriously.
13.Documentation.

19. INTERVIEWING CHILDREN.
Children have limited and different use of
vocabulary and understanding of words.
They have relatively less experience of the
world.
Prior to interviewing the child, take into
consideration the child's age,maturity,and
developmental stage to understand how to
present yourself to the child.

20. Put yourself in their shoes, they
may be:
Scared
Confused
Saddened
Angry
Frustrated
Fearful.

21. Basic stages of interviewing.
1.Before interview: it’s vital that he/she thinks
critically about its purpose and what sort of
information they hope to gain during the process. This
involves taking into account the particular needs and
expectations of the concerned.
2.During the interview: the worker has to establish
rapport. This involves creating a climate where the
interviewee can begin to gain confidence in the
workers personal and professional integrity.

22. Stages of interview cont…
3.Terminating the interview:
The worker/counselor/helper can end the interview by
summarizing the key points discussed and agreeing
on the next step with the client. It is wrong to end the
interview without providing indications that you will
follow up the case, because this may demoralize and
diminish the hope of the client.

23. How would you make the interview
process less scary to children?

24. How would you make the interview
process less scary to children?
 Sitting arrangements.
 Tone of your voice.
 Noise around the interview.
 Physical distance
 Bring something to play with
 Go for a walk
 Play a game
 Find a quiet place at least part of the interview should
be carried out in private.

25. Allow for sufficient time.
 To express themselves.
 To think about their families.
 To remember the separation.
 To explain their experiences
 No rushing.

26. Interview process cont
 Always listen to a child's questions, hopes and
fears and try to respond in a way that is helpful.
 Encourage children to speak about difficult issues
when necessary, but never pressure them to talk.
 Other ways of helping children to express
themselves are:-coloring, playing games ,singing,
drawing.

27. Listen and observe. Non verbal
communication.
Its not always necessary to speak to people to gather
information.
Many aspects of the child and the family life will be clear if
you carefully observe their daily routine,interractions with
one another and behaviors.
 Body language and posture
 Eye contact
 Responses
 Appearances
 Attitude,silence,facial expressions.

28. Other children can be enlisted to comfort a
child in distress. If you know that your
interviewee has a friend or a brother or
sister, ask him or her to talk to the child so
that the interview can be finished.
When children become distressed, look for
signs of distress in children.

29. Potential signs of distress.
Bruises
Scars
Fear of talking about anything
Uncontrollable crying
Aggressive
No eye contact
Etc.