The Association of Professional Counsellors in Nigeria has urged government at all levels to establish functional, well-equipped counselling centres in schools across the nation.

The association also called on counsellor educators to provide rich theoretical and practical training to students, adequately equipping them to deliver professional counselling services.

The APROCON president, Osorochi Obi, said this in her address at the opening ceremony of the 9th Annual International Conference of APROCON on Wednesday.

Ms Obi, who disclosed that it was the association’s first international conference, said that effective conflict resolution was vital for national unity. The president said that the five-day  conference would delve into transformative counselling practices for conflict resolution, emphasising mediation, arbitration, and alternative conflict resolution.

She advised members to equip themselves to adapt in the age of artificial intelligence, saying, “We must strike a balance where technology supports, not supplants our mission.”

Ms Obi, a lecturer at MOUAU, explained that there were ongoing efforts to ensure that the APROCON Bill was passed and assented to.

According to her, the bill, once enacted, will provide a regulatory framework, establish professional standards, and enable counsellors to operate legally in private practice.

Declaring the conference open, the vice-chancellor of MOUAU, Maduebibisi Iwe, charged APROCON to lead the change in building a national framework for preventive counselling and conflict transformation.

He emphasised a framework that is inclusive, data-driven, community-rooted, and policy-relevant. 

Mr Iwe urged the association to develop strategies that could be adopted by the ministries  of education, women’s affairs, and others, to address bullying, cultism, school violence, domestic abuse, and marital breakdown, among others.

“You have the tools. You have the training. You have the mandate. What remains is the collective will to scale your expertise from the counselling room to the policy room,” Mr Iwe said.

In a keynote address, Okey Nworgu, regional representative of the Institute of Global Peace and Conflict Management in Abuja, urged the association to extend counselling beyond the school environment.

Mr Nworgu, in his thought-provoking speech, advised them to seek evidence-based counselling, stating that everyone in the country needed counselling due to the prevailing circumstances.

(NAN)