| CODE | COU5101 | ||||||||||||
| TITLE | Helping Skills - From Theory to Practice | ||||||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 05 - Postgraduate Modular Diploma or Degree Course | ||||||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 7 | ||||||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 10 | ||||||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Counselling | ||||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | Places of work that require human communication require knowledge of the accumulated scientific knowledge and the development of the necessary skills for effective communication and help. Four common helping skills across disciplines are skills for communicating, motivating, problem-solving and resolving conflicts. This study-unit will introduce participants to basic helping skills that address these four common skills for effective and appropriate communication and support to clients and patients. Participants will be able to understand theories of basic counselling skills and the evolution of the helper in human civilisation. Participants can also role-play and practice skills through group work using relevant contexts. Helping skills also require group, interpersonal, and intrapersonal skills as prerequisites, which will be addressed during this study-unit. This study-unit intends to experientially help participants understand and explore the processes generally experienced by most groups and teams, as well as to equip participants with some of the basic skills necessary in order to facilitate daily interaction with and helping/supporting others. This study-unit is also intended to familiarise participants with groups and teams. Moreover, it will help them practice and process some of the important skills necessary to function effectively as group and/or team members within diverse situations. This study-unit also introduces participants to personal values, attitudes and beliefs as persons interested in becoming professional educators. The method of learning and training is experiential since this study-unit's objective is to emphasize learning skills and not simply learn about them. It is, therefore, assumed that participants would practice the skills experienced in this study-unit outside the training group as well. The objective is to help them understand how skills, including processing, are practised in the context in preparation for their profession, which includes these skills as part and parcel of the subject's learning outcomes. Further, in a context where helping skills will be addressed, participants will also be introduced to processing. Processing is the technique that allows for the development of emotional literacy and the ability to reflect and evaluate one鈥檚 learning and performance. Without correct processing, one would not be able to integrate and internalise what they are experiencing and learning, and hence will also not be able to transfer the learning experience to real life. This would impede actual personal growth and change, thus defeating the aim and rationale of PSD. The participants must, therefore, understand and be able to use this technique extremely well. Study-unit Aims: This study-unit intends to focus on helping, processing, communication, and facilitation skills, the fundamental skills counselling is based on. However, this study unit is not meant to qualify successful candidates to be counsellors or to do counselling but intends to: - Help participants understand the processes generally experienced by most groups and teams; - Introduce participants to basic skills necessary to facilitate daily interaction with others; - Familiarize participants with what happens in groups and teams; - Provide the opportunity for participants to practise and analyse some of the important skills necessary to function effectively as members of a group and/or team; - Help participants understand how to cope with diverse situations; - Introduce participants to personal values, attitudes and beliefs as persons interested in supporting individuals at the workplace; - Introduce participants to the concept of processing from an experiential perspective; - Allow participants to both experience processing and explore its implementation in the classroom setting and its relevance to emotional literacy development. This will also be linked to the observations carried out in schools; - Offer an introduction to basic counselling theory, which embraces helping skills; - Provide training in the basic skills required for human communication and support; - Enable participants to practice basic helping and facilitation skills. Learning Outcomes: 1. Knowledge & Understanding By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Describe and explain processes generally experienced by most groups and teams as experienced in work settings; - Describe and explain what happens in groups and teams as experienced in the learning setting and observed in different educational settings; - Explain and critique the Emotional Intelligence/Literacy Model; - Recognize personal values, attitudes and beliefs necessary for persons interested in human communication at the workplace; - Explain what processing is and critique the experience of processing; - Discuss how self-awareness impacts the implementation of communication and helping skills at the workplace; - Discuss the use of processing for the development of emotional literacy; - Describe the theory of helping skills; - Discuss the historical context of counselling as it relates to communication and helping skills; - Differentiate between counselling, helping skills, and giving advice; - Demonstrate the concept of listening, empathy and feedback; - Discuss approaches to basic helping skills and the dynamics involved between the professional and the client. 2. Skills By the end of the study-unit the student will be able to: - Identify and practice basic skills necessary to facilitate daily interaction with others; - Practise and analyse some of the important skills necessary to function effectively as members of a group and/or team; - Appraise and analyse personal values, attitudes and beliefs necessary for persons working with people at the workplace; - Identify challenging personal issues, including issues of sexuality; - Plan personal strategies to address challenging personal issues; - Recognize and experience processing skills as observed and experienced during sessions and as observed in classrooms; - Critique the experience of their processing within the group; - Address Egan鈥檚 three-stage model of basic counselling as it relates to communication and helping skills; - Demonstrate attending skills necessary to help others; - Demonstrate listening skills used when attending; - Demonstrate positive and negative feedback skills necessary for effective communication and helping; - Demonstrate basic helping skills: basic empathy, probing, advanced empathy and challenging; - Apply helping skills learnt presented in diverse situations Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: Main Texts - Egan, G. The skilled helper (Latest Edition available) Brooks/Cole. - Hill, C. E. (2020). Helping skills: Facilitating, exploration, insight, and action (5th Ed.). American Psychological Association. - Original handouts, resources and exercises are given throughout the study-unit. Supplementary Readings - Ahn, L. H., Hill, C. E., Gerstenblith, J. A., Hillman, J. W., Mui, V. W., Yetter, C., Anderson, T. & Kivlighan Jr, D. M. (2023). Helping Skills Training: Outcomes and Trainer Effects. Journal of counseling psychology. 10.1037/cou0000667 - Albom M. (1958). Tuesdays with Morrie, an old man, a young man, and life鈥檚 greatest lesson. Doubleday. - Camilleri, S., Caruana, A., Falzon, R., & Muscat, M. (2012) The Promotion of Emotional Literacy through PSD - The Maltese Experience. Pastoral care in education 30 (1), pp. 19-37. ttps://doi.org/10.1080/02643944.2011.651223鈥� - Carter, P. (2011). Test your emotional intelligence: Improve your EQ and learn how to impress potential employers (testing series). Kogan Page. - Corey, M. S., Corey, G., & Corey, C. (2017). Groups: Process and practice (10th Ed.). Cengage Learning. - Lai-Yeung, S. W. C. (2014). The need for guidance and counselling training for teachers. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 113, 36-43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.01.008. - Frankl, V. (1959). Man鈥檚 search for meaning. Pocket Books. - Goleman D. (1996). Emotional intelligence; why it can matter more than I.Q. Bloomsbury Publ. Co. - Josselson R. (1996). The space between us, exploring the dimensions of human relationships. Sage. - Nelson-Jones, R. (2013). Practical counselling and helping skills: text and activities for the Lifeskills counselling model. Practical Counselling and Helping Skills. Sage Publications Ltd. |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture and Seminar | ||||||||||||
| METHOD OF ASSESSMENT |
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| LECTURER/S | Anthea Maria DAmico Ruth Falzon |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2025/6. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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