Counseling skills in family planning: participants handbook.

This training handbook is designed to complement and enhance the activities of participants in a family planning workshop who may or may not have had previous formal training in counseling but who have assumed such roles. It is intended to expand and perfect the basic counseling skills of participants during and after the workshop through practice activities review sheets forms for training evaluation and a bibliography of books and films related to family planning counseling. Skills are spotlighted in 4 phases of the counseling model. In the relationship-building phase skills are counselor-focused to establish rapport by nonverbal attending skills minimal verbal cues and exhibiting emphatic responses to feelings. The skills in the exploration phase assist client-counselor interaction through perception checking paraphrasing clarifying and reflection of feeling. The goal of the understanding phase is to identify the problem more clearly and help the client identify feelings at a deeper level to increase acceptance of self-responsibility. The skills in this phase include setting priorities questioning increased reflections of feeling and summarizing. The last phase action planning uses all of the skills outlined previously but also the following in coming to a resolution of a problem: checking willingness to act informing about resources giving tentative advice and summarizing. Most of the activities to reinforce skills learning center on role playing within the group using practical "real" situations and case studies. Another section aids further in communication by acquainting participants with street talk and sexual jargon that may be used by clients and also helps to desensitize participants to these terms. Each activity and learning task encourages active lively participation and skills sharing.