TPC-Digests-V1-Issues-123

A b s t r a c t In the worldwide community it is not well known that counseling and guidance professional practices have a long tradition in Venezuela. Therefore, this contribution’s main purpose is to inform the international audience about past and contemporary counseling in Venezuela. Geographic, demographic, and cultural facts about Venezuela are provided. How counseling began, its early development, and pioneer counselors are discussed. The evolution of counseling from an educational based activity to counseling as a technique driven intervention is given an historical account. How a vision of counselors as technicians moved to the notion of counseling as a profession is explained by describing turning points, events, and governmental decisions. Current trends on Venezuelan state policy regarding counselor training, services, and professional status are specified by briefly describing The National Counseling System project and the National Flag Counseling Training Project. Finally, acknowledgement of Venezuela’s counseling pioneers and one of the oldest counseling training programs in Venezuela is described. V enezuelan C ounseling : A dvancement and C urrent C hallenges March 8th, 2011 George Davy Vera During the 1930s, counseling in Venezuela began as a form of educational guidance and counseling concerned with academic and vocational issues using mainly psychometric approaches. Some Venezuelan counseling pioneers were European emigrants. Because of the education and training of these early pioneers, counseling in Venezuela was conceived as educational, vocational, and career-oriented services. In 1962 the Ministry Education requested that the Pedagogic Institute of Caracas house the first formal counselor education program in Venezuela. Some of the early graduates from these programs went abroad, mainly to the U.S., to obtain advanced counseling and guidance education and training at the master’s and doctoral levels. Upon return to Venezuela, they engaged in teaching and training in counseling and guidance at different colleges and some were hired by the Ministry of Education. As a result, American theories, models, TPC Digest Go To Article