TPC Journal V8, Issue 1 - FULL ISSUE

12 The Professional Counselor | Volume 8, Issue 1 (d) unfavorable institutional policies and practices, and (e) a lack of academic advising. With these barriers in mind, there is currently an opportunity in Ghanaian higher education to develop resources that can support student adjustment and academic persistence. Researchers (e.g., Carter, Locks, & Winkle-Wagner, 2013; Gray, Vitak, Easton, & Ellison, 2013; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005; Robbins, Oh, Le, & Button, 2009) have found first-year adjustment to an academic setting to be a crucial component in student retention. Furthermore, they have found that positive adjustment within the first year of college can significantly impact a student’s academic persistence to degree completion. Andoh-Arthur, Asante, and Osafo (2015) studied the help-seeking behaviors of Ghanaian university students and found that the first-year student population was least likely to engage in help-seeking behaviors. They attributed this to the students' unfamiliarity with their new identity as university students. Knowing this, Ghanaian students’ first year of university experience is a crucial time for university support personnel to proactively engage students regarding college adjustment issues. The capacity to identify new university students who are struggling to adjust to college life and who also may be at a higher risk for attrition is essential for Ghanaian university personnel as they seek to improve university retention rates. Globalization of Counseling and Its Role in University Settings The welcome statement of NBCC International proposes an organizational intention to increase the “availability of competent, reliable services to any part of the world that indicates an interest in acquiring them . . . with the utmost care and respect for the social, cultural, political, and economic realities of the various areas where we are invited” (Clawson, 2011, para. 2). Lorelle, Byrd, and Crockett (2012) identified the globalization of counseling as an inevitability, wherein professional counseling activities are progressively transitioning from a Western-based practice to one that gives international communities the opportunity for transformation as well. Lorelle et al. suggested that as the counseling profession is introduced on a local level, opportunities emerge for adaptation to local cultures and new contexts that yield new ways of understanding culturally defined standards of care. Among the many international settings adopting the values and activities synonymous with the counseling profession, Ghana appears poised to increase the capacity and scope of counseling activities through meaningful placement of services on university campuses. Quarshie, Annor, Tagoe, Osei-Poku, and Andoh-Arthur (2016) identified a growing population of mental health professionals within the country of Ghana. This expansion of service provider capacity has been positively correlated with growth in the Ghanaian economy and represents a commitment to developing public mental health infrastructure using existing resources and expanding capacity over time (Ghana Health Professions Regulatory Bodies Act 857, 2013). Quarshie et al.’s (2016) analyses also detected that the majority of Ghanaian mental health professionals are housed on college, polytechnic, and university campuses. Situating these providers within these settings not only provides them support for their professional preparation programs, but also provides proximal contact with students who may be experiencing mental health symptoms while attempting to adjust to new demands within university settings. This action has important consequences for both the globalization of the counseling profession and the promotion of optimal development, degree matriculation, and access to a more equitable life for Ghanaian students. However, evidence-supported interventions require evidence-supported assessments that are population-specific, and currently there is a paucity of such assessments that can be utilized by mental health professionals to understand the adjustment experiences of students at Ghanaian universities.