Experiences of volunteer telephone counselors: A comparison of a professionally oriented and a nonprofessionally oriented approach to their training

Abstract

To compare the effects on counseling experience of two different training programs, three counseling reports from each member of two groups of volunteer telephone counselors were content analysed. As predicted, the counselors working in the agency using the nonprofessional approach proved to communicate more anxieties and depressive feelings and also positive feelings and feelings of competence than those working with the professional approach. They also appeared to be more aware of the social networks within which they were operating. The views of their callers which each group presented were also different, although the types of calls they received were not. The volunteer counselors in the nonprofessionally oriented program described their callers as less anxious and less helpless than did those in the professionally oriented program. These differences were related to the emphasis on informal selection procedures, gut‐level spontaneity, and the peer relationships among “insiders” which appeared to characterize the nonprofessional approach. This was contrasted with the formalized selection procedures, standardized counseling techniques based on professional models, and asymmetrical relationships among “outsiders” which characterized the professional approach to volunteer counselors.

Effect of counselor training on skills development and psychosocial status of volunteers with systemic lupus erythematosus

“…Viiney [24] also evaluated volunteer telephone coun-:jelors. The groups were trained by two different methods, the professional approach and the nonprofessional approach.…”

“…In our study, 24 counselors completed all tests. This sample size enables us to detect up to 60% of a standard deviation with a power of 0.8.…”

“…Group 2 contained 15 participants, for a total of 29 counselors. At follow-up, 6 months later, 24 counselors completed all the questionnaires. Two counselors died, two volunteers never counseled, and one withdrew.…”

Crisis-intervention counseling: An evaluation of long- and short-term effects.

“…Their inter-judge reliability is usually high, yet their scores vary, as is appropriate for measures of psychological states, from situation to situation. They have been useful in studies of other life changes (Viney, 1980) as well as in evaluation studies (Viney, 1983b). The set of nine measures has proved viable with patients in an earlier research project concerned with psychological reactions to illness (Viney, 1983c; Viney & Westbrook, 1982a, 1982b).…”

Telephone Counseling

“…Since the 1960s telephone-counseling services have become an integral part of social service/mental health delivery, primarily in the developed world (Hornblow, 1986;Stein and Lambert, 1984;Viney, 1983). For the main, telephone counselors are volunteers who are trained and supervised by a small number of paid professionals.…”