2. Lifelong learning and application options of lifelong guidance

Source: Based on Ludewig 1994, p.82, adjusted

A cross-section of these dimensions (client’s expectation and counsellor’s approach) forms certain typical approaches in counselling (four quadrants) with their internal limitations stemming from:

1. reasons on the client’s part;
2. the way in which assistance is provided; and
3. the duration of assistance.

“Quadrants” of counselling approaches:

• Information satisfies the clients’ requests to gain and expand missing knowledge, findings and skills needed in their personal lives and work. The reason for seeking counselling is the absence of something that clients desire. Among the ways in which assistance is offered, we find provision of information by a counsellor and duration of a counselling relation is not limited.
• Advice takes the form of assistance to clients so that they exploit their own strength, potential and capacities in order to alter their situation and remedy the situation that stands out as a reason for seeking counselling (“help me make use of my capabilities“). The cause for seeking counselling is the inability to make use of one’s own inner potential, the mode of assistance is “unlocking“ and supporting structures available to facilitate change in undesirable status. Duration of counselling relation is typically limited by reaching a satisfactory result, i.e. a change in satisfying clients’ needs.
• Guidance makes it easier for clients to withstand their (often unalterable) disadvantageous status quo that made them seek the counsellor’s advice. The way to assist clients is to stabilise them via external structures in an unlimited period of time.
• Therapy helps clients if their complicated situation seems unalterable (“help me terminate my suffering“). It is the way in which the counsellor (therapist) may actively contribute to change, i.e. developing a problem-solving solution. The duration of assistance is limited by the clients’ resolution of their problems. On the other hand, activating a client’s unique needs can inform about personal differences and offer diverse solutions.

In the last decades, adult counselling has been gaining within the European dimension as reflected in recommendations adopted by European structures for individual member states, in generalisation of experience, examples of good counselling practice, networking of national agencies, support of supranational activities, projects and mobilities. For mutual comprehension of counselling issues, it is important to acquire compliance in specialised terminology, conditioned by convention on comprehension of terms and language peculiarities. There are various types of lifelong guidance and according to EU policy, adult education guidance is defined as an ongoing process enabling individuals of any age and at any stage in life to identify their capabilities, capacities and interests, to accept sensible decisions on education, professional preparation and employment, and to regulate their individual life journey during their studies, at work and in other areas where such capabilities and capacities may be gained, learned or used/applied (EU Council, 2008). Counselling activities form an organisational and specialised framework for provision of services meant to satisfy the needs of clients from various target groups. Internationalisation of the topic of counselling on the European level brings about inspiration for the adult counselling sphere such as: skills for development of one’s own career; accessibility, quality and efficiency of counselling services; their strategic management and financing; cooperation and coordination; improvement of career information; specialised preparation and qualification of counsellors; and application of information and communication technologies (ELGPN, 2016). Crucial documents analysing the status and trends in lifelong guidance in an international context are, e.g., CECEFOP 2010, ELPGN 2015, EK 2018, EAEA 2018 (Manifesto for Adult Learning in 21^st Century: The Power and Joy of Learning). Documents related to the situation in Slovakia are, e.g., OECD 2020, and also Lifelong Learning and Counselling Strategy for years 2021 to 2030 endorsed by the Slovak Government.

The concept of counselling derives not only from international documents (EU Council, 2008), social needs (school-educational, psychological and career guidance for students) and labour market needs (employed and unemployed), but also from the logic of lifelong guidance components in line with the definition of a lifelong process (counselling for minors, adults and seniors). As their lives evolve, human beings proceed through various stages and due to various reasons, conditions and circumstances, they often become part of groups that may be perceived as target groups for lifelong guidance:

• based on a specific situation and resulting needs (pupils in primary and secondary schools; university students; unemployed adults, at risk groups in the labour market; employed adults; persons with disability; marginalised social groups; pensioners, seniors and others);
• based on the institutional sector providing counselling for schools and school facilities (Ministry of Education being the umbrella body); counselling in employment services (Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family being the umbrella body); counselling for the non-profit sector, for the private sector, and for the sector of public organisations, self-government and state administration.

The principles of lifelong guidance stem from its objectives and specify concrete demands on counsellors as well as the way in which the counselling process should be headed. Following are the principles of counselling (adapted based on OECD 2005, p. 69–70; Palán – Langer 2008, p. 172–173; Freibergová 2007, p. 47; Langer 2017, p. 29–30):

• Proficiency and competence in that the counselling services may only be facilitated by an erudite counsellor equipped with sufficient practical experience, methodology, technical and material support. If a certain case exceeds the counsellor’s competence, it is vital to refer the client to a competent service.
• Trust and safety (client’s support), where it is crucial to create an environment providing for the need to resolve the client’s issues, or it may be one of the ways to resolve the issue.
• Respect and patience with the client, meaning respect for the clients’ personality, their right to their own opinion, behaviour and actions (as long as they are not violating the laws, other regulations or good manners) as well as non-discrimination based on gender, age, ethnicity, social status, qualification, abilities, etc.
• Protection of client (confidentiality) meaning that the counsellor refrains from behaviour which could in any way harm clients and their interests, especially when it comes to personal contact with clients, their sensitive data and information.
• Impartiality and independence of the counsellor, as an attempt to gain an objective perspective while respecting a person’s uniqueness and independence from employers, their co-workers and companies, financial interests and people who could profit from that
• Motivation, activation and a holistic approach according to continu client’s motivation to make one’s own decisions, to take active approach to resolution of one’s own problems, but also to education, acquisition, expansion and deepening of one’s competencies while respecting the personal, social, cultural and economic context of the client’s decision-making.

Economic growth in society along with introduction of new technologies depend on the educational attainment of citizens. Increasing the level of education develops the potential for innovation needed for social and economic development. The level of education among citizens comes not only as a result of formal, school-based education (high schools and universities) but it is more and more an issue of lifelong learning and lifelong guidance for citizens. The significance of lifelong guidance is growing since everyone is confronted with various stimuli and challenges to be resolved each day. Among the reasons for increased interest in counselling, Juříčková (2008, p. 11–12) introduces, for example, a change in lifestyle (focus on performance at work, less significant social securities, the increased pace of life, consumerism, changes in the way free time is spent and perceived), weakening of the position and value of family and other educational factors, cultural and social changes (demographic trends, unemployment, etc.), but also growth in economic power and interest of citizens in various advisory services. Adults sometimes may not know about various possibilities to increase their qualifications and they may have a biased opinion of their own competencies. Many are not aware of the counselling opportunities that could help to validate the results of their non-formal education, i.e. informal learning (Detko et al., 2016).

Švec (2008, p. 61) defines lifelong guidance as a “process of helping individuals and groups to comprehend and overcome adjustment problems“ with the basis being  “an intervention and regulation (study, civil, professional, marital, parental and others) of the bio-psychological and social development on a person’s life journey“. Lifelong guidance is a continuous process prompting citizens of all ages to appreciate and enhance their capabilities, skills and interests; to make decisions and to manage their own individual paths in their education, profession and other areas. Lifelong guidance has:

• educational impacts – increased participation in education and vocational training or improvement of achieved educational results and reduced number of dropouts from education;
• economic impacts and effects on employment – higher salaries, a lower rate of employee turnover, and a higher probability that a client finds a job;
• social impacts – higher mobility and capacity of the company, a lower probability of asocial features and a lowered rate of social exclusion, etc.; and
• psychological impacts – higher self-awareness and awareness of opportunities, improvement of decision-making skills centred around abilities to handle transitions (between individual stages of education, education and work, between employments, etc.) a fall in career indecision and a stabilised satisfaction with one’s own life.

However, in our opinion, other potential connotations should be mentioned which, according to us, are based on very similar “andragogic“ backgrounds. Hargašová et al. (2009, p. 225) puts lifelong guidance into relation with lifelong psychology (an innovative title for developmental psychology), which monitors human development and self-fulfilment throughout life’s entire journey. A counsellor involved in the counselling process helps individuals with their self-development,  with their personal orientation and direction in life, with decision-making, planning and reaching objectives on their own by trying and materialising one’s own potential and overcoming obstacles and seeking meaning in life (in terms of contents and form, it is a personalised and socialised learning, including training, education and instruction). Apart from a lifelong, praxeological approach to vocational guidance for school-age children and adults entering the labour market, Palán (2002, p. 160–161) mentions also academic guidance and counselling concerning educational options for adults. He describes its absence and non-systematic nature, while emphasising its special significance for individuals and organisations trying to improve. Freibergová (2007) introduced her concept of study consulting for adults in areas such as personal life, education and professional development. The concept is based on a complex approach to individuals, their unique nature and identity as well as mutual interactions of their personal, professional and cultural characteristics along with Roger’s client-centred model. Sejčová (in Švec 2015, p. 737) states that apart from psychology and psychotherapy, counselling forms part of other fields, too (helping professions) and counsellors come from various science fields and branches, especially pedagogics, educational counselling, training guidance, teaching, special and treatment pedagogics, social pedagogics, social work, nursing, etc. The term educational counselling derives from the fact that a substantial part of counselling services is facilitated by educational specialists at schools (a place of social, educational, training, ethical, psychological and other development issues of students, including the question of vocational guidance). Vocational guidance to minors depicts a field oriented on gaining a competitive edge on the labour market, which needs to be addressed upon the start of school attendance. There, it becomes a specific educational task of the school (vocational guidance, study guidance) where individuals get to know the world of labour and seek their place in it.

However, specialised literature differentiates between these notions only too vaguely and ambiguously. Búgelová (2011, p. 70–71) raises a question of lifelong (labour) counselling for employed adults who cannot be regarded as clients in the traditional psychological sense to help them seek qualified assistance in resolving their problems. It claims that many adults in their productive age do not need therapy, they feel mentally and physically fit and lack a reason to seek specialised counselling (psychological, labour-related, social), however some questions (e.g. relation to oneself and work and social environment, in which they work) would require a qualified, helpful standpoint. Svobodová (2015, p. 11) sets aside a specific type of career guidance – vocational guidance, however, she also points out to the fact that its concept has not been unambiguously defined in our counselling terminology. Vocational guidance in her mind is a kind of career guidance seeking a match between opportunities offered by the labour market  in terms of utilising a client’s qualifications and competencies to fit into the labour market’s current situation. Vocational guidance revolves around professional clients’ careers, their job retention and selection of education with the aim of developing the clients’ vocational experience and social competencies. We believe that Hvozdík (2011) introduces counselling for older adults as a very specific, but exceptionally socially-significant type of counselling, mainly due to the fact that the pensionable age is becoming more and more delayed and the problem of age management in organisations becomes rather pronounced, along with encouragement of active ageing.

Career counselling

Dynamic economic changes as well as in society initiate a need for lifelong learning, which therefore become an inevitability for every single individual. All of us find ourselves in the role of learners having to cope with various tasks and problems, for which school neither could manage or fully prepare them. That is the reason why individuals need continuous support in key parts of their work-related journey (e.g. motivation for lifelong learning, termination of ongoing education, seeking new educational opportunities, navigating through the available educational offers or opportunities in the labour market, also projecting further career path). So far, the concept of work professionalisation in organisations and the career construct-career self-development –  has been hardly correlated. We believe that the study and modelling of employees’ support tools as part of employees’ self-development bears a potential for their professionalisation. In our understanding, both client and consultant play a central role when it comes to career development measures (career guidance). Thus, we are naturally crossing over to the territory of career and vocational guidance for employed adults, or possibly its designation as adult career guidance, since new trends make us view the entire human working life as one uninterrupted career. Career guidance serves as an umbrella notion with the broadest possible sense covering all three levels of counselling services (Grajcár – Hargašová – Lepeňová, 2017, p. 3):

• provision of career information;
• professional orientation needed for selection of a profession or education (career guidance),
• career guidance defined by the relationship between the counsellor and the client (career counselling).

Counselling regarding vocations is often linked to the adjective “vocational”, but more frequently (not necessarily more eloquently) we apply the term career guidance, personal guidance, vocational guidance, or career counselling). Svobodová (2015, p. 127) states that a client’s track is shaped around individual age stages and various social roles. The educational path plays an important role in a client’s life track. Being an interdisciplinary field, vocational guidance operates within a person’s life course in relation to lifelong learning and uses life-course analysis as a research method (biographical research). As part of vocational guidance, individual biography explores the life course of a client within specific characteristics. The term counselling, connoting a deficit, is being substituted by a new paradigm – an integral part of lifelong learning (help to reach the point of self-help), where instead of being based only on rational, economic fundamentals, career development also takes the human needs into consideration as a whole (Peavy, 2013). Integrating elements of effective strategies deriving from modern counselling systems (narrative, social-dynamic, systematic, constructivist and related to competence), enables problem solving on both an individual and organisational level. Among such elements, Prochádzka et al. (2015, p. 13) lists a whole spectrum of activities enabling citizens of all age categories to identify their capacities, skills and interests at any given moment and at the same time make sensible educational and professional decisions while directing their own individual course within the sphere of education, work and other situations facilitating acquisition and use of such skills and capacities.

Career counselling provides a whole set of counselling services concerning education and employment focusing on issues like selection of school, profession and employment, development of competencies required in order to match labour market needs, career development and dealing with obstacles linked to education and employment. OECD/EC (SAAIC 2005, p. 11) defines career counselling as a set of services and activities meant to help individuals with their choice of vocation, vocational training and jobs as well as with management of their career at any age and phase of their lives. Such services may be offered by schools, institutions for specialised training, universities and colleges, public employment services, workplaces, the third sector or on a communal level and by the private sector. The counselling could take the form of individual or group help, personal or distant (including telephone counselling and services via internet pages). Services include career information (in print, electronic or other forms), evaluation and self-evaluation tools, counselling discussions, career education programmes (focusing on support of self-awareness, perception of options and skills needed for career management), trial programmes (overview of options prior to selection), job seeking programmes and services covering transit periods. 

Based on Pisoňová et al. (2017, p. 54–56), career counselling is regarded as a specific system of counselling services aimed at helping individuals of various ages make decisions about further education, professional qualification, choice of employment and career development. This type of counselling operates with standard psychological methods and diagnostics allowing to collect comprehensive information on an individual’s prerequisites for job positions, professional growth and education. For organisational success, it is vital to safeguard efficient management of talents and their career-gifted employees with a large potential for performance and other prerequisites, e.g. leadership, innovation, analytical or ethical skills. This type of management system (talent management) relies on planning and successorship in a position. A manual for authors of career counselling strategies (OECD, 2005, p. 28–31) states that so far, service development policies on European level have not been dealt with even though they could cover a whole spectrum of employed adults’ needs related to career development.

Hence, it is clear that even employed adults need to have access to career counselling focusing on career development within the range of their workplace. It is recommended that career counselling tools become part of modern concepts supporting lifelong education for each profession, so that they become an integral part of educational programmes in institutions financed from public funds. The European Commission (CEDEFOP, 2010, p. 19–36) states that initiatives in the public sector are rare and apply mainly to support of adaptation processes provided to new employees, or career support offered to top managers; however, they are inaccessible to a broad spectrum of employees. According to the OECD (2005, p. 71), effective investment into education and vocational training, labour market efficiency, lifelong education, social inclusion, equality and economic development are among the political objectives pursued by lifelong career counselling.

Beková et al. (2014, p. 79) suggests that the most extensive services in career development are those offered by employers, since they prevail as far as their overall number is concerned. However, most employers have not formed special positions devoted solely to this issue. Specialists from human resource departments are typically in charge of employees’ development, frequently as part of their workload. These individuals are largely psychologists specialising in applied workplace psychology or personnel management, even though such qualification is not always required in a given position. We may even encounter human resource specialists who graduated from pedagogy, economic, humanities and technical fields. Support of self-management, management of one’s own career, corporate intranet, self-study via internet, or call centres and distant personnel services can be rarely found.  Hirsh (based on CEDEFOP 2010, p. 20) differentiates between three types of career services offered by an organisation: career processes managed by the organisation, career services offered via human resource management and support of professional development as an individually-managed personal career.

Career counselling encourages employees to identify and use their own potential (personal capacities and occupational skills) to adopt decisions related to their own career. Career counselling is a dynamically-developing area of lifelong counselling. It is encompassed in European and national policies (departments of schools, labour and social affairs) and implemented in diverse environments and conditions; it is interdisciplinary, multidimensional and in essence, it responds to the needs and resolution of problems among clients from various target groups (employed, unemployed, disadvantaged and others). Career counselling relies on several psychological career development theories (differential and developmental psychology, social learning theory, constructivist theory and others), currently being integrated – while also forming a new theoretical basis for practical application of career counselling. Groma (2012, p. 24–29) points out that modern career theories fail to take sufficient regard to the diversity of adult clients in counselling practises, since they were developed for average and most frequently served individuals. That is the reason why it is recommended in career development theories applied in counselling to accept a variety of clients to a larger extent among the whole population (gender, race, cultural background, social disadvantage, handicap and many others).

The practical application of vocational counselling is based on diverse counselling theories. Lepeňová – Hargašová (2012, p. 36) describe theoretical approaches to career counselling historically evolving from a static-psychotechnical notion of vocational counselling to dynamic comprehension of educational guidance, or integrated educational and vocational guidance, i.e. lifelong career counselling. Lifelong career counselling reflects  upon the dynamics of the labour market; it is closely related to the lifelong learning concept in this knowledge-based society; with the need of individuals ( human resources) to constantly learn and master new competencies in order to achieve higher employability and better meet the needs of the labour market. According to Beková et al. (2014, p. 80) career planning is a rather complex and systematic process engaging employees in the company, along with direct supervisors and human resource specialists. The aim of career planning in companies is very much related to developing and exploiting employees‘ potential. The capabilities of individual employees contribute to the overall success of the company; that is why the essence of success is harmonisation of desires and expectations of employees with the strategic objectives of the company. Development of individuals’ careers, especially the talented ones, is comprised of two components:

• Career planning – oriented on finding an employee’s “own path“. Stipulation of individual vocational objectives taking personal desires into consideration along with motivation, interests, values, skills, abilities and priorities as well as proposals by an employee.
• Career management – enables individuals to unleash their potential. It combines prerequisites of vertical and horizontal movement forming part of variability among positions in the organisation with an individual development plan and evaluation of the employee based on stipulated objectives. The objectives of career management on an individual level – increasing an employee’s level of motivation, intentional focus on results and development of one’s own potential. On the organisational level, it is mainly constant human resource development, increased loyalty and engagement of employees, their identification with a vision, philosophy of the organisation and its culture, facilitation of management continuity – planning successorship on important posts.

Human resource counselling

Human resource counselling for andragogy represents one of the closest contexts applicable in this field. Comprehending the essence, mission, functions and contents of human resource counselling forms a clear interdisciplinary cross-section of both approaches, allowing for more precise understanding of their mission and application options in adult counselling. It is natural that human resource counselling draws its interventions from a client’s learning processes (individuals and organisations) who consequently alter their behaviour, procedures, results of activities, etc. Kocianová (2007, p. 8–11) defines human resource counselling as forming part of two approaches:

• Any kind of assistance focusing on contents, process, structure of the task or a whole range of tasks. Counsellors bear no actual responsibility for completing the task, instead they only help those who are in charge of the task.
• As a specific professional service providing contractual counselling through trained and qualified persons who help the organisations identify and analyse management bottlenecks, recommend how they could be resolved in an objective and independent manner and if asked, they help with implementation of the solution.

Kubr et al. (1991) describes counselling in organisational management (public and private) in the broad sense of the word. Counselling activities are viewed as a change in organisation and its environment, organisation and its culture, people – human resource development, but also innovations and entrepreneurship, finance, marketing and sales, manufacture of information technology and data processing. Kociánová (2007, p. 10–11) perceives the mission of human resource management as contributing to optimisation of human resource management based on scientific knowledge and practical experience (i.e. analysis of workplaces and exploitation of employees’ skills; human resource planning; recruiting, attracting and selecting employees; motivating and remunerating; educating and training; occupational health and safety; care for employees; managing staff redundancies; analysis, prognosis, surveys, expertise, audits, etc.). The contents of human resource counselling according to Horalíková differentiates (In Kociánová 2007, p. 11) between:

• expert counselling as one-way knowledge transfer coming from expert to client while focusing on a specific task and offering the client an opportunity to learn procedures from an expert;
• process guidance as provision of knowledge and mainly skills, allowing the client to identify and resolve problems independently while enabling monitoring of the skill development; and
• crisis counselling, with client and expert cooperating in finding a comprehensive resolution to the situation, while it is not clear where the actual problem dwells (defining the cause of the problem – evaluation of the situation – seeking variants and ways to problem resolution).

Many Slovak companies currently offer human resource counselling, among them we can find human resource and educational agencies; companies with diverse business activities and methods of work. A first group consists of agencies facilitating employment and temporary employment agencies mediating employment to persons for a fee. They seek and gather occupational offers and match them with their job applicants or job seekers (from various databases without deeper analysis of employer’s needs and workplace without research, evaluation and verification of declared knowledge and skills of a particular applicant). These are usually lower-ranked positions, temporary or seasonal jobs, such as technical staff, nurses, manual workers, harvesters, aupair, etc.. The second group encompasses recruitment and selection entities specialising in search, selection and evaluation of human capital (Executive Search and Recruitment and other HR companies). They offer services to their clients which are not aimed at facilitating employment, instead they provide counselling in human resource management to organisations. As part of the counselling package, they offer recruitment and counselling services usually including counselling concerning recruitment and selection of employees for designated job vacancies. However, they do not specialise in finding a job for a particular individual, instead, their goal is to offer a solution of a specific human resource problem to an organisation hiring their services. It includes: recruitment and selection agencies specialising in recruitment of suitable candidates for lower-ranked  up to middle-ranked positions (including on-line recruiting agencies). Recruitment and selection agencies are also often in charge of executive searches. They differ not only in terms of the target group of candidates, but also in the methods applied. For instance, when it comes to search, recruitment and selection agencies most frequently exploit internal and external human resource databases, while recruiting candidates mainly through promotion of their offer on the labour market. These companies make use of discreet research procedures for targeted search of candidates supported by verification of references and deep assessment methods of their suitability mainly in terms of managerial success, personal prerequisites and potential. In EU countries, we encounter recruitment & selection companies specialising in assessment.

Educational counselling

Sejčová (In Švec et al. 2015, p. 1235–1244) defines the field of educational counselling as an applied pedagogical discipline evolving from formal school’s practical needs. These days it is a field striving to support individuals and groups in their studies, work and personal matters while improving the quality of their lives in social, mental, relational and performance-related fields. Such a definition indicates a perspective of lifelong, educational-formative and developmental aspects of counselling and approaches to personality. Mátel – Schavel (2015, p. 327–329) are quoting the classification of typical counselling features introduced by Koščo (1980), which could be applied even to the constitution of educational (and andragogic) counselling:

• interdisciplinary and comprehensive nature – several scientific fields and specialists tackle the counselling tasks and practice;
• multi spheric and versatile nature – harmonises the interests and needs of a broad spectrum of users and a network of counselling services which make social processes more efficient;
• professional nature – performed by theoretically and practically qualified specialists offering professional counselling services;
• institutional nature – being organised and facilitated in specialised state and non-state institutions based on respective mandate;
• procedural, lifelong nature – serves in all stages of the course of life;
• educational and formative nature – forms part of education in the broadest possible sense of the word while safeguarding the impact on complex personal development;
• personal nature – the subject of counselling is a person in entirety;
• internal differentiation – allows to constitute several specialisations, organised on problematic issues, types of activities and institutions offering counselling services.

In terms of educational (andragogic) counselling, it is the social counselling (educational social counselling) that stands out as the most inspiring; the one serving even adults and applying very similar practises. Social counselling tackles dissimilar types of issues from those covered by andragogic counselling. It is a fact that throughout the past decades, adult social counselling has been developing dynamically; it has been building up its institutional and human resource capacities while recognising the importance of education within its scope of activities. Consequently, it gave rise to educational social work in the form of an interdisciplinary domain evolved as an intersection of andragogy and social work. Machalová (2016, p. 133–134) defines educational social work as neologism and a subsystem of the science of social work and social work practice. Educational social work operates via targeted educational and counselling activities forming part of lifelong adult educational programmes for clients of social work within the frame of educational social counselling. Educational tools are typically serving as a targeted attempt to divert the individual approach of social work clients to the circumstances in their lives, to their social situation and social issues. The aim of educational social activities is to mediate professional support of human learning in order to motivate change in their perspective, evaluation, attitudes towards one’s social situation and alteration in their actions. Social problems of individuals as well as disadvantaged and marginalised social groups are viewed by educational social work through the lenses of determination of the social problem. As a result, the roots giving rise and sustaining the individuals’ and social groups’ social issues should first and foremost be sought in education (or insufficient education), in training (or insufficient training) of social clients. Machalová (2019) is an author of the concept of educational social work broadened by the educational social counselling and presented as a unique and innovative approach in social work. It substantiates an intersection of education for adult clients of social work in a social counselling theory and counselling practice in social work. Machalová (2019) states that educational social counselling mediated to social clients – participants to counselling activities and counselling process, is a tangible form of social assistance and a significant type of social service. 

Educational counselling is a counselling that concerns education and learning catering for the needs of adults and minors arising from an interdisciplinary approach and variety of conditions and environments, in which its clients (target groups) have specific needs. Andragogic counselling for adults forms an integral part of broadly comprehended educational counselling for humans.