From Cyriacus Nnaji, Lagos
Professor Ayodeji Olawunmi Badejo, Professor of Counselling Psychology; Department of Educational Foundations and Counselling Psychology, Faculty of Education, Lagos State University (LASU) has called on government to rejuvenate the nation’s value systems for a better Lagos and ultimately, a better Nigeria.
“There is a need to come up with an initiative on rejuvenation of our value system for a better Lagos and ultimately, a better Nigeria. This will involve the use of appropriate counselling services. It should be a broad-based venture which should be both preventive and curative in nature,” Badejo stated.
The erudite scholar took the stance while addressing her audience as the 80th Inaugural Lecturer of LASU on Tuesday, August 31, 2021 at the institution’s main campus in Ojo.
Topic of the Lecture was “Counsellors: Catalyst for Societal Equilibrium”.
She said that the high rate of maladaptive behaviour amongst children, teenagers, and young adults is part of the disruption to societal stability and it is a concern to her as a counsellor. She stated that some of the maladaptive behaviour the teenagers and young adults engage in included drug addiction, cyber-crime, various forms of yahoo+, stealing, kidnapping, and different types of money rituals. “To my mind, most of these problems are indicative of the erosion of our value system,” Badejo lamented.
She spoke further “It is true that we teach them values in civic education, but these are solely for examination purposes. For it to be meaningful, they must experience them at many different levels, feel them, think about them and put them to use throughout the day. This will enable them to see the effect of their behaviour and choices and assist them to develop socially acceptable decision -making skills.”
Badejo reeled out some of the initiatives to include Inculcation of living values. This, she maintained, is an approach that would engage all groups from children to the elderly. “It knows no boundaries; it’s not gender specific and embraces all faiths and cultures. This is just about the values of our common humanity. Living values reach into every facet of society where values are felt to be recognized and understood as the common bond of all people. Some of these values are those of peace, tolerance, cooperation, love, respect, responsibility etc. These are obviously lacking in our society today and that is essentially why we have the problems we have in the country now. The government should seek to formulate and implement policies that promote good values.”
Badejo suggested other initiatives to include Open space counseling which is an avenue where clients can receive different types of therapies. She said “Clients can come of their own volition or they could be referred from their organisations etc; Toll-free mobile counselling helpline: This should be a toll-free helpline; free of charge and available 24/7. There will always be counsellors to attend to people’s needs; Socio-personal space for adults and their contemporaries. The society does not make much provision for the elderly. The closest that has been done in terms of providing for the elderly are the Old Peoples’ Homes. However, the government needs to do much more than this. There should be provision of socio-personal space where the elderly can not only interact with their contemporaries but also share problems of personal concern with trained personnel; a counselor,” Badejo stated.
Not only that, Professor Badejo also maintained that for societal equilibrium to be achieved, it must start from the home. “Each family has to start with value orientation of young ones and this has to be through primary, secondary, and tertiary education and even to the workplace.”
She added that the home environment has to be filled with empathy, generosity, compassion, love, kindness and consideration for others. “However, what we have now is that parents have abdicated their responsibility of moral and character training of young ones and the resultant effects are what we have seen in terms of anti-social and delinquent activities,” Badejo stated.
For the university, she recommended Counselling Centre, adding that in line with the National Universities’ Commission (NUC) standard for universities, the counselling unit in the university should be upgraded to a Centre of Counselling and Human Development and should be fully functional. This, she said, will enable staff and students to visit the counselling centre for emotional and mental wellness, free of charge.
She suggested “Post graduate students, both Masters and Doctoral can be posted to the centre to assist the staff on ground under a close supervision of the academic staff in the counselling department.
On Mental Health Programme, she said University counsellors should as part of their duties ensure mental health wellness of the students. This they can do through preventive and curative interventions.
Badejo spoke about Preventive Intervention, which include Group guidance. She said this can be done on faculty basis and possibly once in a semester. Topics to be discussed could include: dangers of drug abuse, violence and how to resist peer pressure. Others could be handling binge eating, depression, anorexia nervosa, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts.
Mental health marathon walk/destigmatization campaign, this, Badejo also disclosed should be done on faculty basis every semester. The students take a long walk from one end of the campus to the other talking about the challenges of mental health and the need of not stigmatizing anyone with mental health issues; rather, help or assistance should be given to them.
Campus Jamboree, this involves organizing fun-filled activities for students once in a session. This will allow them to have opportunity of diffusing their tension through music, drama, exhibition etc. Also counsellors and health personnel will be available to talk to them on mental health issues. Selected students can wear T-shirts with various captions on effective mental health.
Under Curative Intervention, she spoke about Individual and group Counselling, this she stated can be organized for students diagnosed with mental health challenges.
Talking therapies, this she suggested will involve the counsellor and the student talking about the problems using talking therapies such as : Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) – which focuses on the 'here and now' and aims to change negative patterns of thinking and behaving.Cognitive analytical therapy (CAT) which exposes the student to an exploration of new ways to cope with problems.
Creative therapies – Creativity, she said, has been linked to effective mental health. She said that Engaging students in creative activities like singing, painting, drawing, art therapy and drama therapy can be used in counselling for mental health. Creative therapies explore ways of channelling emotions. For example, sometimes you are angry or tensed and the next thing you do is that you pick up a pen or pencil and start drawing even though, you do not see yourself as an artist. At other times, when your spirit is low, you may start singing or dancing or doing some creative activities. Such creative activities are ways you are actually unconsciously managing your mental health challenges.
On Family intervention, she maintained that Mental health challenges cannot be effectively solved without the involvement of the student’s family and significant others. The family should be encouraged to work with the counsellor to solve whatever mental health problem their ward may be facing.
She added that Referral to other appropriate professionals and agencies in cases beyond the professional capacity of the counsellor could be initiated. This will allow the students the opportunity of having access to other specialized services, other resources or services in the community.
