By Trudy Simpson, Staff ReporterSOME GUIDANCE counsellors in local schools are driving away students because of their judgmental attitudes to sex and sexuality issues.
Some students also do not trust some counsellors, who they feel discuss their personal problems with others.
While guidance counsellors seem to know about sexual and reproductive health issues, a recent knowledge, attitude and practice preliminary survey showed some of them were unwittingly pushing away students.
Dr. Lisa Norman, who collated the data, said research showed that some school counsellors often made decisions and reacted to situations based on their own values and attitudes and not those of the students. This, she said, was because counsellors often had difficulty separating the two.
This judgmental stance was most evident in discussions on whether masturbation was unhealthy for students and should be actively discouraged.
"More people gave the non-optimal response when we did that pre-test, meaning that they agreed that it was not healthy and that persons should not do it. We wanted people to put their value systems aside and be able to look at the adolescent issues," she said.
Seminars were conducted among 316 school guidance counsellors in six parishes in March, April and May, this year. It was spearheaded by the Women's Centre of Jamaica Foundation (WCJF) with funding from the World Bank and Advocates for Youth.
IMPACT OF PERSONAL BELIEFS
There were other examples of how guidance counsellors' beliefs may influence how they respond to students.
Evaluations of questionnaires issued at the start of the seminar, showed that only half of the parti-cipants agreed with the required answer, which was that adolescents often did not use contraceptives, because they did not have information about them. At the end of the seminar, another survey showed that 49 per cent still either did not know, or still disagreed, which is not considered the appropriate or more positive response in the survey.
Eighty-four per cent did not know that spermicides offer protection from some organisms that cause sexually transmitted infections. This went down by one per cent at the end of the seminar.
Forty-five per cent still didn't know or didn't believe that the first age of sex for males in Jamaica was 13 years and 55 per cent did not know or didn't believe that the first age of sex for girls was 15 years.
Forty-five per cent didn't give an answer to, didn't know, or didn't agree that is was appropriate to give contraceptives to sexually active adolescents under the age of consent. "It would have been seen as more positive and more objective to give them information and contraceptives if you know that they were at risk," Dr. Norman said.
These negative responses went down by 19 per cent regarding boys and 18 per cent regarding girls.
Only 17 per cent and 39 per cent respectively, initially expressed more positive attitudes, by stating that students should be the ones to set their goals during counselling sessions, instead of being aided by a guidance counsellor and that kissing was an important activity for adolescents.
This rose to 27 and 39 per cent respectively at the end of the seminar.
Dr. Norman also said that based on responses to posed questions, some counsellors spent time focusing on only the students' problems instead of on finding solutions.
Only five per cent understood new methods, like solution focus counselling, at the beginning of the sessions. This is a non-directive form where the counsellor helps the student clarify his or her feelings and find solutions. In the end, 39 per cent understood, but that increase was still not enough.
Many did not know that it was up to the student to determine what the goal of counselling sessions would be.
"Most counsellors had high levels of knowledge as it relates to sexual and reproductive health issues, but there were still some gaps in knowledge with respect to the solution focus counselling," explained Dr. Norman.
"There is still need for more positive attitudes towards issues of adolescence and sexuality," said Dr. Norman, who presented the findings to scores of educators, guidance counsellors and youth welfare representatives at the Terra Nova Hotel and Suites, St. Andrew.
As she and others continued, other key issues emerged, among them, a lack of distrust on the part of students because of the pupils' perception that guidance counsellors breach confidentiality by telling teachers and other persons about student problems.
This prompted heated denials of confidentiality breaches from some guidance counsellors present during the discussion session, following the presentation. One audience member pointed out that guidance counsellors were often the victims of labelling.
