Lack Of Confidentiality Concerns Highlighted

Tarusila Tuisese of Sikituru, Nadi said there was a major issue in villages with community counsellors openly discussing issues that community members entrusted them to keep confidential.

Ms Tuisese was sharing her concerns during the Lifeline Fiji Equaliser training in Lautoka on Monday.

“They share things about money and everything that everyone goes through in their families and they tried to find that trusted person to share things with them and I would like to encourage us just to keep that person’s secret confidential,” she said.

Lifeline Fiji Team leader Jeremaia Mereakula said it was important that community members ensured that they were sharing their struggles to counsellors who received certified training.

“We have a lot of people who have gone through one-day training or two-day training or for one-week and they call themselves counsellors, but in reality, they have not gone through any counselling training at all and that doesn’t make you a counsellor,” he said.

“You need to get certified training to be a counsellor; that doesn’t deter you from being a helper."

"Everyone can be a listening ear or helper to anyone that is going through a crisis and if you operate from that level of you just trying to help a friend then that’s okay.”

He said Lifeline Fiji did receive feedback from workshops regarding this issue.

“We are currently trying to streamline people that are calling themselves counsellors and trying to have a standard for all counsellors in Fiji so that is something that is in the pipeline,” he said.

Feedback: salote.qalubau@fijisun.com.fj