Children, youth, marriage and family counselling

The times we live in are extremely dynamic, give us an enormous amount of information, and are filled with change. Transition, war and post-war events, stressful life dynamic… are just some of the global and local changes that threaten people’s psychological integrity and their social security in general. People easily abandon who they are, stifling their uniqueness and authenticity in order to fit in, to follow individuals, groups, trends, and in that way satisfy their need for acceptance, but also for power. Man is a social being and thus, the need for belonging is a core human characteristic that describes how all people strive to form and maintain comfortable and lasting interpersonal relations. Such changes and needs require a complex, long-term, and systematic approach to assisting and supporting people in today’s world. Some of the methods of choice in such situations include counselling.

Even very healthy and well-adjusted people, in stressful situations, can experience failure and a need for help, guidance, and support. Therefore, the ability to provide, within the local community, the conditions for a direct contact with its citizens with the purpose of increasing the feeling of inclusion, personal competence and functionality of every person and/or family, is imperative today.

Counselling

Counselling/psychotherapy is a process of psychologically strengthening a person who is facing difficulties with the goal of overcoming those difficulties and achieving greater satisfaction and happiness in life. During this process, we help people change, achieve some of their goals, or generally function better.

Essential elements of counselling are:

  • Conducted by professionals specialised in helping people
  • Specific method of assistance that capacitates currently unsuccessful individuals for independent and successful action, problem solving and a successful and healthy life.
  • Available to individuals, couples, family and groups

Counsellors are experts in their respective fields, most commonly psychologists, psychiatrists, defectologists, social workers.

Counselling makes use of specific knowledge, skills, methods and techniques dependant on the profession of the counsellor or specific educations they’ve been through (reality therapy, behavioural-cognitive therapy, gestalt therapy, psychoanalysis, etc.). The purpose of counselling is usually to “help people become their own best helpers”.

The goal of a counselling centre

In order to meet the needs of clients, the Counselling Centre offers various services, such as counselling and group work, educational workshops and specific programs.

The main work of the Centre is concentrated on counselling work with people in need of support and help in solving everyday life problems and difficulties.

Counselling and working with children is possible only with parental consent, preferably in writing.

If the child’s parents themselves do not engage in counselling work there are usually no observable lasting effects of counselling.

There exist several types of counselling, depending on:

  • Number of people (individual, couple, family or group counselling)
  • Form of communication with users (direct, indirect)
  • Users/clients (children, youth, adults, couples, families, addicts, people in crisis, victims of abuse)

Depending on the form of communication with users, we differentiate between:

  • Direct counselling work – face to face
  • Indirect counselling – through a type of media (telephone, internet, public media)

Purpose of Counselling Centre

City counselling centres are places available to all citizens, especially for those who come forward seeking support at a very early stage of personal and/or family risk, and professional action in relation to them has a much higher chance or preventing an individual’s behavioural disorder or a deviation in normal family functioning. In this way, citizens are given the opportunity to use professional and accessible counselling-informative Centre as a place that encourages the development of human potential in our community.

Citizens contact the Healthy City of Poreč Counselling Centre mostly for reasons listed below, but also for many others:

  • Children (accompanied by parents) – difficulties in socialising and adapting, learning difficulties, behavioural disorders, various emotional difficulties
  • Youth – adolescent and other developmental crises, emotional difficulties, difficulties in socialising and adapting, disagreements with parents, learning disabilities and difficulties, addiction and drug experimentation, various behavioural disorders
  • Adults – pre-marital and marital problems, poor communication in the family, differences in parenting styles, physical, sexual or psychological abuse in the family, emotional and behavioural disorders, addiction in the family, family illness or disabilities…

Within the existing capacity of professional, financial and spatial resources, the Healthy City Counselling Centre Poreč provides the following services:

  1. Counselling work (individual, family, group and couple counselling)
  2. Psychological diagnostics
  3. Educational activities (lectures, workshops, presentations)
  4. Psychological research
  5. Supervision and evaluation
  6. Creation of educationally informative leaflets, brochures, and publications
  7. Designing and developing written projects, development plans and strategies for the health of the City of Poreč.