Abstract
Between 2010 and 2014, the British Council funded a project under a scheme called INSPIRE, which involved training a group of 20 Afghan practitioners in counselling skills. The participants were from Kabul and Herat, and the partners in the project were the University of Herat and the University of Strathclyde (UK). The ethos of the programme was based on co-constructing a model of transcultural training that could be applicable within the Afghan context (Berdondini et al. in International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 36(3), 305–316, 2014). As an outcome, in 2016 the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education approved the launch of a Counselling Department and a Student Counselling Service within the University of Herat. This article aims to present and analyse the long-term development of INSPIRE in Afghanistan from the perspective of participants. Reflections on future implementation of this approach and training programs are also included.
Highlights
Introduction: the INSPIRE Project (2010-2014) Numerous studies report alarmingly high levels of mental health disorders among the Afghan population, including adversity-related distress and non-psychotic disorders (Alemi et al, 2018; Miller at al., 2009; Panter-Brick, et al 2009)
This paper presents some reflections and follow up analysis on how the INSPIRE project that was carried out between 2010 and 2014 in Afghanistan and focused on how developing a transcultural training course in counselling, has impacted on the long term personal and professional development of the participants
It seems that at least half of the people originally trained are still practicing as counsellors and some of them even engaged in further Post Graduate training and development. They are working in a variety of different contexts in their country, from mental health centres, to schools, women prisons and orphanages
Summary
In spring 2018, the Counselling Department of the University of Herat approved the Ethical proposal for the current study and a search was done to contact the 20 participants who were trained in the programme over the four years. It was possible to track back only 15 people from the original number of participants (some had left the country). An invitation letter explaining the aim of the study and a consent form were sent to each one of them
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