VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24075, 11 October 1943, Page 6

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE

REHABILITATION AND ALLIED PROBLEMS

ROLE OF THE PSYCHOLOGIST AND PSYCHIATRIST

The essential part played by vocational guidance in current educational developments is emphasised in a statement issued by the president ■of the New Zealand Vocational Guidance Association (Dr. R. Winterbourn). The official vocational guidance organisation of the Dominion had been given important duties in connexion with rehabilitation and juvenile manpower, said Dr. Winterbourn. Accrediting for university entrance purposes in postprimary schools, and the proposed raising of the school leaving age to 15 years both implied educational guidance, he added. Staffs of vocational guidance centres would need to be further increased, and duplicated in other cities. “The schools at all levels will need to become more ‘guidance conscious’ as the new developments in them proceed." Dr. Winterbourn said. “All of this makes very obvious the need for an adequate training system, whereby guidance workers can be prepared for their professional duties. It also indicates the need for introducing courses in guidance into the curricula of our teachers’ training colleges, and for providing courses of this nature for teachers already in service. “No Time to Lose”

“These matters are seen to be urgent right now," said Dr. Winterbourne. “That no time should be lost in developing our guidance facilities and training personnel to out the work involved is obvious to anyone who pauses to think for a few moments of the problems which will arise when the thousands of young persons now in the armed forces are demobilised. The juvenile manpower problems pi to-day will be comparatively simple in comparison with those of the immediate post-war years. Thousands of young men and women will require educational and vocational guidance oi a very special kind. Many will have had inadequate educational Pr e P? ra " tion for the jobs they want or the jobs they are, by natural aptitudes, suited for. Many will have had no experience of civilian work at all. but wifi have gone, for example, straight trom secondary school to flying Many of these will want to continue their careers in aviation, but the careers wil simolv not be available for a very large proportion of them. Many will feel out of, place in a civilian adult community, which they were not privileged to grow into gradually from boyhood. Many will be unsettled, many discontented. Women discharged from the forces and civilians no bound to remain in jobs to which they were directed, will introduce special problems of their own.” Rehabilitation and Guidance Guidance was one of ,^5 y P arl ? of rehabilitation, Dr. Winterbourn added. The building-up of morale, a flexible training programme, and a preparedness to deal with all kinds of nervous tension and up-ets would all be important in the transition period between -the war and the new social and economic order. , ■ . Dr Winterbourn said figures showed that about 20 per cent, of active service casualties were psychological cases. In addition, there would be thousands who, although not classifiable as casualties, were suffering from various degrees of nervous tension, as well as many persons among the civilian population whose nervous tension and emotional adjustment had been adversely affected by war conditions. “It is most important that this aspect of rehabilitation and guidance should be given due consideration," he said. “Some of us do not feel very happy about the position. We have not heard anything very reassuring frpm official sources as to what is being done and what will be done in the still more .difficult period ahead. New Zealand is appallingly short r' psychiatrists. Lack of such personnel will make still more difficult the work of those engaged upon post-war rehabilitation-guidance. The most effective possible use should be made of the few psychiatrists available and also of suitable non-medical psychologists. .Their co-operation will be most necessary in respect to some individual cases and also in a general advisory capacity.”