Family Counselling

General Assembly of the United Nations declared 15th May as "International Family Day" with a decision taken in 1993. Since 1994 it has been celebrated all over the world and in our country. In addition, the week in which this day takes place, 15-21 May, has been accepted as "Family Week". This week, it is important to provide health trainings about functions of the family, communication within the family members, crisis management in the family and parental attitudes.
            Looking at the historical process of the family; with the transformation of the traditional family structure into urban and nuclear family structures with industrialization, the problems in families increase either relatively or with the decrease in social support mechanisms in the extended family. It causes the family to experience some problems within themselves or with the environment. These problems experienced by families are; lack of communication, unfaithfulness  and deception, abandonment, running away from home, economic problems, unemployment and money management problems, sexual health and sexual dysfunctions, sexual abuse, all kinds of abuse, domestic violence, psychological diseases in family members -especially personality disorders-, gambling, alcohol or drug addiction, pregnancy and postpartum processes, inability to have children, adoption and its effects, having a disabled child, child neglect and abuse, adolescence problems, elderly abuse and elderly care problems, losses in the family and mourning process, joining new members to the family or separation, divorce.
Divorces and the next process is the most family counseling needed situation. It rates in the world are increasing day by day and families are dispersing. According to the national health statistics data of 2014 in the USA; the divorce rate was stated as 38% and the marriage rate was 6.9 per thousand and the divorce rate was 3.2 per thousand. Divorce also increased in re-marriages and it was reported that 41% for first marriages, 60% for second marriages and 73% for third marriages. Looking at the statistics of Europe; while the crude marriage rate was 4.2 per thousand in 2016, the crude divorce rate was stated as 2 per thousand. Looking at the statistics in our country; according to Turkey Statistical Institute’s (TSI), it was reported that 596 thousand 493 people got married in 2016 and 126 thousand 164 people got divorced in the same year. So the divorce rate was 21.22%. In the same data, it was reported that the crude marriage rate was 7.5 per thousand and the crude divorce rate was 1.59 per thousand.
This process reveals and increases the need for family counseling. When family counseling is needed; family counselors help individuals, couples and families in counseling centers by combining counseling theories, system theories and clinical intervention techniques.
Regardless of their methods, therapists have the following aims for the family:
v To handle and reduce mental symptoms and functional disorders in the individual in relationships.
v To resolve family and marital conflicts and conflicts with the wider family and society.
v To mobilize their ability to identify and use resource behaviors that the family can use in problem solving for family complaints.
v To facilitate the perception and satisfaction of emotional needs of family members.
v Developing problem-solving and communication skills of members and family in the face of challenging life events, medical and mental illnesses.
v To increase the autonomy and communication skills of each of family members.
v To increase the harmony between the sexes and the distribution of roles between generations.
v To facilitate the integration of the family with the social environment.
Family counseling: It refers to the service that is based on evaluating the family system in which family members develop or fulfill their functions or other social environments in which they have a relationship and based on this understanding. It includes special techniques and strategies for change and development for individuals, couples or families to solve their problems.
Family counseling center: For the development and strength of the family; they are organizations that provide protective, preventive, educational, developing, counseling and rehabilitative services to individuals in order to become participatory, productive, self-sufficient and to improve their problem solving capacities.
Family Counseling Centers (legislation) (Regulation dated 04.09.2012 and numbered 28401) From the Ministry of Family and Social Policies: The purpose of the Regulation on Family Counseling Centers to be Opened by Real Persons and Private Law Legal Persons and Public Institutions and Organizations; It regulates the procedures and principles regarding the personnel and service standards, ethical rules, wage tariffs, opening and closing procedures, activities, audits and other issues of family counseling centers opened by real persons and private legal entities and public institutions and organizations.
According to this regulation; "Education and qualifications of the family counselor is defined;
ARTICLE 14 - (1) Those who have graduated from at least four-year undergraduate programs in one of the fields of social work, psychology, sociology, psychological counseling and guidance, medicine, nursing and child development, at least after successfully completing a four hundred and fifty-hour family counseling training program with three hundred hours of theoretical and at least thirty hours of supervision can be awarded the title of family counselor.
(2) Those who have completed their master's or doctorate education in the field of family counseling after completing undergraduate programs in social work, psychology, sociology, psychological counseling and guidance, medicine, nursing and child development are considered as family counselors and they are not required to work in centers”. In other words, by taking the certified training specified in the regulation in child developers can also work as family counselors.
Of families in the event that coping mechanisms are insufficient in solving the developmental and coincidental crises they face in the life process, family counseling support will be important for the health of the family, the quality of life and the mental and physical health of the children they raise.
 
Resources
Çetinkaya, B. (2004). Ruhsal Açıdan Sağlıklı Aile. Sağlıklı Çocuk. Ankara: Empati Yayınları.
Erkan, S. (2013). Aile ve Aile Eğitimi İle İlgili Temel Kavramlar. Ankara: Anı Yayıncılık.
Çağdaş, A. (2012). Anne-Baba-Çocuk İletişimi. Ankara: Eğiten Kitap.
Emre, O. (2016). Ebeveynleştirmenin Çocukların Gelişim Sürecine Etkisi. İnönü Üniversitesi Sağlık Bilimleri Dergisi, 5(2). 29-34.