Lived Experiences of Guidance Facilitators Who Take the Role of Guidance Counselors in the Philippines

Abstract

Guidance facilitators in the Philippines usually do not hold the qualifications of a
guidance counselor. Yet, due to registered guidance counselor (RGC) shortage,
guidance facilitators who graduated in various fields must take RGC’s role, thus,
the gap remains and literature on this issue is scarce. Hence, this phenomenological
research explored the experiences of guidance facilitators with their clients. It
answered two research questions: a) How do the guidance facilitators describe their
experiences in taking RGC’s role? b) What issues and challenges have the guidance
facilitators faced? Fifteen guidance facilitators who met the criteria set were the
study’s participants. To achieve maximum variation, participants were chosen
across age, employment type, and location. Data were collected via one-on-one
interviews and analyzed using Creswell’s model retaining only relevant themes.
The themes that emerged on the guidance facilitators’ experiences were clients with
special needs and boundary issues. Under boundary issues were multiple
relationships, multiple roles, and love interest by clients with the guidance
facilitators. The feelings of fear, difficulty, confusion, guilt, and sense of
achievement were felt by the guidance facilitators as they described their counseling
experiences. Issues and challenges faced by guidance facilitators were lack of
training, job mismatch, lack of documentation, false accusation, limited technology
and skills, and guidance counselors’ insufficiency. Based on the findings, a training
program for guidance facilitators is necessary. For future research, mixed method
studies may be conducted to find out the extent of the problem in terms of the
shortage of RGCs and to design intervention to address the RGC shortage.