Chapter 7: Counselling Your Staff
Description:
When a staff member comes to a nurse manager for counselling, that staff member expects to take part in a confidential, professional interview through which he or she hopes to feel better and receive help in solving problems (Geldard & Geldard 2001). Counselling staff involves skilled intervention, confidentiality and, most importantly, the ability to help staff members find a solution to their problems. Counselling is not a pleasant chat between friends; rather, it is a structured attempt to provide help in a problem situation.
Counselling, if undertaken properly, is never neutral. When a nurse manager spends time in a counselling relationship with a staff member, something in the life of that staff member will change; that person’s ability to explore, cope and solve problems will be enhanced or diminished (Egan 1998).
Topics:
- Introduction
- The complexity of staff counselling
- Possible conflicts
- The nature of the counselling relationship
- Methods of counselling
- Issues to be considered
- Using other counsellors
- Supervision
- Conclusion
- References
Speaker/ Author:
Andrew Crowther
Andrew qualified as a general and psychiatric nurse in Leicestershire (UK). His postgraduate studies include a master’s degree on the subject of policy and social change (Portsmouth, UK) and doctoral studies on the historical aspects of mental hospital management (La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia). Andrew has wide experience in clinical nursing and nurse management, including a combined clinical and managerial role as coordinator of a rural community mental-health team in Australia. Much involved with nurse education, both in the hospital setting and in the university sector, he has taught nursing at the University of South Australia and at La Trobe University. Andrew’s interests and experience in the fields of clinical nursing, nurse management and nurse education led to his editing this important book for nurse managers. He is also the author of several mental-health nursing-distance education texts and of book chapters on a variety of topics. Formerly an assistant director of nursing in South Australia, Andrew is now associate head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Charles Sturt University, New South Wales.
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