UNS – Students of Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta won the 2nd position in the Da’wah and Communication Festival (Dacomfest) 2023. They emerged victorious in the International Group Counseling category of the competition organized by the Faculty of Da’wah and Islamic Communication (FDKI) at the Institute Agama Islam Negeri (IAIN, or the State Islamic Institute) Kudus.
Speaking to uns.ac.id, one of the team members, Eka Ayu Pujiastuti, explained that they addressed the issue of someone’s self-esteem in the competition. The students, majoring in Guidance and Counseling at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (FKIP) UNS, conducted group counseling using a reality approach with the implementation of the WDEP technique.
“The person had previously felt underappreciated by their environment, making them feel worthless. This led to many negative feelings and thoughts that increasingly disrupted their daily lives,” Eka explained on Monday (27/11/2023).
The UNS student team started group counseling in early August 2023 to compete in Dacomfest 2023. Group counseling was conducted in four stages. The initial stage began with agreements on time, principles, and group norms. They also explored self-esteem as the topic for group counseling.
Next, in the transition stage, they prepared discussions for the core stage. The transition stage prepared group members to express issues, share opinions, and provide feedback. They also discussed the atmosphere within the group.
In the core stage, group members began to express their problems. They applied the WDEP technique, covering Wants, Doing and Direction, Evaluation, and Planning. This technique started with adjusting desires, needs, perceptions, and the level of commitment they wanted to achieve. They then delved into all aspects of behavior, including actions, thoughts, feelings, and physical aspects. More detailed and unique information provided a better understanding and awareness for the counselor regarding their behavior. The counselor’s role was to help group members evaluate all the actions taken. This technique concluded with creating a plan or all the actions desired by the group counseling members.
The group counseling stages were then concluded with summarizing the counseling results and expressing impressions by group members. The group leader also provided reinforcement for the progress of each member. They also agreed on the next group counseling meetings.
Eka mentioned that the results of this counseling had a positive impact on group members who initially had self-esteem issues initially. The person was found to have made plans for the future after participating in group counseling with the counselor and other group members.
“They have started to make plans that were created during the group counseling session to be implemented later after the counseling session ends,” Eka said.
The group counseling conducted by the UNS Team was then submitted in the form of a video for the competition. This result led them to become one of the finalists at GOR IAIN Kudus. They were later announced as the 2nd-place winners in the International Group Counseling category at Dacomfest 2023.
“When the announcement was made, it felt surprising and unbelievable because we could compete with quite well-known universities in Indonesia,” Eka said. Humas UNS
Reporter: R. P. Adji
Editor: Dwi Hastuti