Personal Quality of Counselors Family Counseling: Implications of Education in Higher Education Institutions

Personal qualities have been a primary focus of human resource development researchers. This factor has also been studied by researchers in the realm of professional family counselling services, albeit with limited published results. This article aims to examines the personal qualities a counsellor must possess in order to provide effective family counselling service. This study employs a qualitative approach with case study method. Technique of data collections involved 2 to 3 rounds of in-depth interview with semi-structured interview protocols. It explored the perspectives and experiences of twelve counsellor practitioners who provide family counselling at three existing government agencies in Malaysia that provide family counselling services to the community. The results show that there are 10 personalities that form the personal qualities of counselors, namely i. Willingness to learn, ii. High motivation, iii. Genuine, iv. Self-confidence and self-competence, v. Proactive, vi. Humanistic vii. Willingness to help, viii. Working Relationships, ix. The interweaving of social relationships and x. Interest. All of these personal qualities contribute to the effectiveness of the family counselling process. Therefore, education and training at the Bachelor's and Master's levels in HEIs should be taken seriously in order to produce counsellors with the required personal qualities to serve as competent family counsellors in Malaysian government agencies. To ensure quality service, existing counsellors in government agencies should receive continuing education and training.