All children are our children : practitioners’ perceptions of the role of counsellors’ in supporting the immigrant child’s acculturation

Abstract

This study aimed at exploring how counsellors’ and other helping professionals’ perceive the role of counselling in supporting the acculuration of immigrant children and adolescents. Eleven open-ended semi-structured interviews were conducted with eleven helping professionals. The data was then recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) approach. A total of five super-ordinate themes emerged from the analysis of the data, specifically: the challenges of acculuration; understanding acculturation; systems of acculturation; the counsellor as professional and person; and the role of the counsellor in acculuration. The findings clearly suggest that counselling is beneficial for acculturating immigrant children and adolescents.