Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

UFS counselling psychologist to lead mental health initiatives

06 October 2022 | Story Anthony Mthembu | Photo Kaleidoscope

Tobias van den Bergh, Counselling Psychologist at the University of the Free State, has been appointed as the President of the Southern African Association for Counselling and Development in Higher Education (SAACDHE). The appointment became official at the annual SAACDHE conference, which took place in Pretoria from 12 to 14 September 2022. As such, van den Bergh perceives this appointment as an opportunity: “To be part of a creative process that tackles the challenges faced in higher education and knowing the difficulty that students and my colleagues across the country are struggling with, accepting this appointment felt right.”

The role of SAACDHE

“The organisation represents members of several higher education counselling and career development centres from the SADC region. The organisation’s mission is to promote, guide, and advance best practices in centres at institutions of higher education,” explained Van den Bergh. Through this representation and assistance, members are able to provide quality support to the students they serve. SAACDHE members include mental health professionals, social workers, HIV/AIDS counsellors, researchers, and career development specialists from more than 15 higher education institutions in South Africa and Botswana. Furthermore, Van den Bergh asserts that, “SAACDHE represents its members through lobbying for increased institutional support, the promotion of scholarly, ethical, and best practices, and the training and development of professionals.”

Van den Bergh as President of the organisation

As the newly elected President of the organisation, there are several challenges that Van den Bergh believes require the immediate attention of SAACDHE. For instance, he maintains that student populations and the mental health challenges they face have grown at a substantial rate over the past few decades. However, the staff capacity in counselling and career development centres has not increased commensurately. As such, the challenge in this regard is that the need for mental health interventions continues to grow, but the capacity is not sufficient to deal with those challenges and to fill the gap in public mental health services. To address this challenge, he indicates that “the organisation is striving to innovate counselling centres, and to find ways to work smarter and be preventative where possible”.

In addition, Van den Bergh is adamant about ensuring that the organisation continues to be innovative in the way mental health services are provided to students, and to create practices that are culturally and contextually relevant. However, his long-term vision for the organisation is, “to continue serving as a training, development, and practice-based organisation, so that we can equip members with support and knowledge that will help them to continue helping students in a smarter and better way”.

News Archive

UFS scientists involved in groundbreaking research to protect rhino horns

2010-07-27

Pictured from the left are: Prof. Paul Grobler (UFS), Prof. Antoinette Kotze (NZG) and Ms. Karen Ehlers (UFS).
Photo: Supplied

Scientists at the University of the Free State (UFS) are involved in a research study that will help to trace the source of any southern white rhino product to a specific geographic location.

This is an initiative of the National Zoological Gardens of South Africa (NZG).

Prof. Paul Grobler, who is heading the project in the Department of Genetics at the UFS, said that the research might even allow the identification of the individual animal from which a product was derived. This would allow law enforcement agencies not only to determine with certainty whether rhino horn, traded illegally on the international black market, had its origin in South Africa, but also from which region of South Africa the product came.

This additional knowledge is expected to have a major impact on the illicit trade in rhino horn and provide a potent legal club to get at rhino horn smugglers and traders.

The full research team consists of Prof. Grobler; Christiaan Labuschagne, a Ph.D. student at the UFS; Prof. Antoinette Kotze from the NZG, who is also an affiliated professor at the UFS; and Dr Desire Dalton, also from the NZG.

The team’s research involves the identification of small differences in the genetic code among white rhino populations in different regions of South Africa. The genetic code of every species is unique, and is composed of a sequence of the four nucleotide bases G, A, T and C that are inherited from one generation to the next. When one nucleotide base is changed or mutated in an individual, this mutated base is also inherited by the individual's progeny.

If, after many generations, this changed base is present in at least 1% of the individuals of a group, it is described as a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), pronounced "snip". Breeding populations that are geographically and reproductively isolated often contain different patterns of such SNPs, which act as a unique genetic signature for each population.

The team is assembling a detailed list of all SNPs found in white rhinos from different regions in South Africa. The work is done in collaboration with the Pretoria-based company, Inqaba Biotech, who is performing the nucleotide sequencing that is required for the identification of the SNPs.

Financial support for the project is provided by the Advanced Biomolecular Research cluster at the UFS.

The southern white rhino was once thought to be extinct, but in a conservation success story the species was boosted from an initial population of about 100 individuals located in KwaZulu-Natal at the end of the 19th century, to the present population of about 15 000 individuals. The southern white rhino is still, however, listed as “near threatened” by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

Media Release:
Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za
27 July 2010

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept