1. Counseling Training in Operation Mainstream; Outline of Principles and Experience. Occasional Papers, No. 3.
- Author
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New England Center for Continuing Education, Durham, NH., Marvin, John B., and Kelman, Samuel M.
- Abstract
As funded from July 1967 to June 1968 by the Bureau of Work Programs, Operation Mainstream called for employing 120 community aides from the rural poor of the three most northern counties of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, who were to be trained in counseling and problem solving skills. A staff of part time resource development consultants from the University of Maine developed the program; and supervision was provided by the community action agencies. Experiencing confusion and frustrations caused by lack of training, late funding, and problems of great distances, and facing a continual flow of debilitating crises, it was decided to identify the concepts underlying the program as well as planning and implementing it. It was decided to use a rational-emotional, individualized approach to training in problem solving; unique to this Mainstream project, aides were not only to be trained for increased employability but also were to have a client group; there was to be individual responsibility for learning, an evolutionary model of programing, role modeling the consultant on problem solving, and the right to fail; and it is hoped that the evaluation phase will become an ongoing phase. Despite its trials, it is felt that Operation Mainstream is overtly becoming a success. (nl)
- Published
- 1968