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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

Inaugural lecture: Prof André Pelser

2004-06-04

Tendencies and changes in the South African population structure in future decades.

Within the next five years South Africa will for the first time in the past century enter a period where the death rate will exceed the birth rate, largely due to the impact of HIV / AIDS.

According to sociologist Prof André Pelser, sociologist at the of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of Sociology, the death rate exceeding the birthrate is only one of three demographic trends which will fundamentally change South Africa’s population structure in the following decades.

He was speaking at the UFS in Bloemfontein during his inaugural lecture as professor this week.

Prof Pelser said that according to some models the South African population will decrease within the next five decades by between 10 and 26 percent.

A second important trend which will impact on the population structure is the progressive ageing of the population.

He said the group above 65 years is the only age category in the South African population which will witness sharp increases in the next few decades.

In the next 50 years, the group younger than 15 years will reflect a decrease of 39% and those older than 65 years in South Africa will increase by approximately 110% in the next two decades.

“The systematic “greying” of the South African population will create the same economic and welfare issues as those with which governments in some more developed countries are already grappling,” said Prof Pelser.

A third trend affecting the South African population structure is the constant decrease in life expectancy.

Life expectancy at birth for the total population is projected to decrease from approximately 62 years at the beginning of the 1990’s to 43 years in 2015-2020, with sharp differences between the various population groups.

These tendencies and changes to the South African population structure have serious implications, he said.

For example, he said, the reduction in life expectancy could compromise national development objectives.

“It is estimated that more than a quarter of the economically active population will be infected with HIV by 2006,” said Prof Pelser.

The increase in the population, in age category 65, will place a financial burden on government and the economically active sector.

“Especially worrying is the fact that ever-increasing proportions of the state budget will be allocated to health and welfare services and this at the expense of other priorities like education, infrastructure, criminal justice system and trade and industry, to name but a few,” he said

“A comprehensive and integrated strategy is thus vitally important in addressing the overarching issues caused by changes in the population structure,” said Prof Pelser.

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