Exploring Sexuality Education and the Burdened Teacher: A Participatory Approach in a Rural Primary School in Kenya

Twenty-five years since the onset of HIV/AIDS, young people aged 15–24 now make up half of new HIV infections. This paper advocates for comprehensive sexuality education as an effective panacea to reverse this, with teachers stepping up and embracing their role as sexuality educators. The exploration of this challenge is informed by a small-scale participatory study of teacher responses in a rural primary school in Nakuru district, Kenya. Dialogue was held with 18 teachers (11 females, seven males) on the challenges they faced in teaching sexuality education and teachers emerged as disorientated and embarrassed in conversations about sexuality issues with the pupils. Because sexuality education lacks a curriculum, teachers have found it challenging to integrate it into regular subjects; they also observed that parents seem resistant to addressing this at home, and thus this task falls to them.
In the study, a process of self-awareness of the need for them to step up and teach sexuality education emerges among the participants. A key finding is that participatory and dialectical interventions that can prepare teachers and develop their confidence in teaching sexuality education are required.     

Laboratory to Classroom: The Practical Application of IPR in a Master's Level Prepracticum Counselor Education Program

This controlled study analyzed the comparative effectiveness of two prepracticum methods on the subsequent interviewing skills of candidates for a master's degree in counseling. One method was based on a theory of counselor developmental tasks and was implemented by a specific use of the Interpersonal Process Recall (IPR) technique. The other, a more traditional prepracticum, consisted of an overview of counseling theories and practices and made extensive use of group discussion presentation and critiques of prerecorded audio- and videotapes. The results of the study indicate that it is possible to incorporate media techniques into a training model within the financial and time limitations of an ongoing master's level program. The IPR training procedures studied were run entirely by advanced graduate students, using one video-recording facility and no faculty time. The statistically significant results of the present study are especially meaningful because they replicate the positive findings of previous studies, and also because the results were obtained in an ongoing course offered by the university and not in a laboratory or special training setting.     

A Review of the Empirical Basis for Counseling: Implications for Practice and Training

This article reviews the empirical literature in terms of three components of counseling including existing counselor and client factors, the counseling process, and the outcome of client change. The counseling process is based on the therapeutic relationship, general factors, and common techniques or interventions, as well as specific counseling approaches. The review supports the contention that there are common factors exhibited by skilled therapists that are empirically related to positive client change. Recommendations are made for the use of this information by counselor educators in training student counselors and designing training programs.