Counselling needs of children in some selected rehabilitation schools in Kenya: a study in personal orientation
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Date
2005
Authors
Ambira, Susan
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Kenyatta University
Abstract
Childrenare a basic resource for proper continuity of any society and utmost care must be
taken to ensure their safety and survival. Rehabilitation centres are created with the sole
purpose of re-socializing children with behavior disorders in order to rebuild their selfesteem
so that they can fit back into the society. However, evidence has shown that these
centres often than not have little understanding of the children's real needs, or the most
appropriate ways of engaging them in these programs. This has led to many rehabilitation
programs remaining largely inadequate and ineffective. In order to understand these
children better and to provide them with proper guidance and counseling, their personal
orientation,which reflects the inner-self, needs to be assessed.
The major purpose of this st~dy was to explore the personal orientation of children in
habilitation schools in Kenya with an intention of developing an appropriate counseling
approach that is relevant to the needs of the children. To realize the purpose of the study! a
survey design was adopted. The survey subject comprised 110 children from four
rehabilitation schools in Kenya. Stratified random sampling was used to choose the sample
population. Primary data was collected by use of questionnaires and interview schedule.
The POI contained both open-ended and structured questions. Informal discussions were
held where necessary to seek clarification and additional information from the respondents.
The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used for data processing and
analysis. The first stage of processing and analysis involved computation of frequencies,
percentages and generation of tables. The second stage involved testing of hypotheses by
use of ANOV A and the t-test statistic to test for independence of association.
The results show that children in rehabilitation schools are non-self actualizing. These
findingssuggest that these children are other-directed and time incompetent and live in the
past or future with a lot of regrets and sentiments. There is need therefore to develop a
comprehensiveprogramme for children in rehabilitation schools that involve the
orientationof these children towards positive concept of personal growth. The outline for
the guidanceprogramme for these children should be developed focusing on areas of needs
identifiedby the POI.
Description
A research project submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts
(Counselling Psychology) Kenyatta University. 2005, LC 1048 .P47.A41
Keywords
Counselling, Counselling in vocational education