Overview

Who: Both Medical Assistant and Public Health Nurse

When: Ongoing (At clinic, home-visits, outreach)

Supporting Tools: Home-visits, Outreach, Referral Pathways Guide

Counselling is a way of working with people in which you understand how they feel, and help them to decide what they think is best to do in their situation. Counselling skills helps people to change as they learn to think things through for themselves and make their own decisions, free of the effects of past experiences or practices.

Counselling is an essential skill that PHC workers use in caring for the sick person, family members and care providers to enhance their capacity to cope with a disease affecting them or their loved ones and to provide care or even to address other social issues that are contributing to their ill health. Counselling, as a professional skill, can be provided through individual, family or group counselling approaches. Group counselling affords an opportunity for people with similar needs to share their experiences on how they have managed and coped with their condition. Counselling can also be given as a prelude to a referral for other services.