Evaluation of the Effect of the Development of Guidance and Counselling Programmes on Individual Self-Efficacy in the Administration Police Service of Kenya

Abstract

The research evaluates the effect of the development of Guidance and Counselling programmes on individual self-efficacy in the Administration Police Service of Kenya. The study was guided by the Well-being theory by Martin Seligman. The study adopted the Ex-post-facto research design and stratified random sampling technique was used to select 367 participants from a population of 7,404 Administration Police (AP) officers while 20 key informants were purposively sampled. The study utilized both qualitative and quantitative methods in data collection. Self-administered questionnaires and an interview schedule were used to collect data. Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient was used to establish the reliability of the instruments which yielded a reliability coefficient of 0.81.Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS version 25.0) was used in analyzing the quantitative data. Qualitative data was analyzed inductively and deductively through thematic content analysis. The study revealed that though the Administration Police Service (APS) offered counselling services to its officers, not many officers had benefitted from the programmed services therefore these services were not effective in training self-efficacy among the officers.The study established that the low uptake of the psychological counselling programme can be attributed to the fact that the program has not been decentralized to the lowest level that is the sub-county which is the lowest centres of service delivery for the APS. Secondly there were few professional counsellors within the APS, the study also revealed that the officers were reluctant to take up the programme due to the fear of being stereotyped by their colleagues. The study recommends, the strengthening of the APS   Psychological Counselling programme through the employment of professional counsellors to cater for the counselling needs of the APS; sanitization of the importance of mental health that is advocacy to the police officers and infrastructural development for spaces for carrying out the psychological services and the decentralization of the psychological counselling programme up to the lowest level of service delivery for the AP officers which is the Subcounty level.