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Contribution of student counselling towards building academic resilience of students in ODeL institution

Presenter

Student Counsellor for 10 years with Unisa with a BPsych Honours Psychology and a BA degree.

Worked for 3 years as Student Counsellor at Unisa Nelspruit in North Eastern Region then moved to Gauteng Region in 2012 till now. Worked with different student dinamics from Inmates, School learners and NGO's.

Have keen interest in training and development areas. Have 9 years experience in Facilitation and presentation.

Abstract

McGrath and Noble (2010) refers to human resilience as “the capacity of a person to address challenges and cope with times of adversity and hardship, and then return to a state of wellbeing”. In academia, academic resilience refers to students attaining good educational outcomes despite adversity.

At the Unisa Johannesburg service directorate, the Counselling and Career Development (CCD) services are crucial in targeting students who are at an increased risk of falling behind academically. At the Johannesburg Centre, various methods are employed in an attempt to address the inefficiencies and lack of resilience among students in different contexts. The broader departmental vision of the CCD is to open windows towards personal transformation and lifelong career development through effective student counselling interventions. 

The aim of this paper is to highlight the need and importance of the Student counselling services as one of the support services essential for graduateness and employability of our students. In addition, this paper will unpack intervention strategies ranging from personalised counselling sessions to the employ of multi-agency interventions to support students throughout their academic journey.   

Presentation & Resources