How to become a Counsellor
Official title: Counsellor (drugs/alcohol)
Also called: Alcohol counsellor, Drugs and alcohol counsellor, Drugs counsellor, Drugs and alcohol counsellor
Counsellor (drugs/alcohol) provides assistance and counselling to individuals and families dealing with drug and alcohol addictions, monitors their progress, advocates for them, and performs crisis interventions and group therapy. He/she assists the persons with the consequences of their addictions which can be unemployment, physical or mental disorders and poverty. He/she may also prepare educational programmes for high-risk populations.
Main tasks
- Interviewing clients, preparing case histories and assessing problems
- Providing counselling, therapy and mediation services and facilitating group sessions to assist clients to develop skills and insights needed to deal with and resolve their social and personal problems
- Liaising with social service agencies, educational institutions and healthcare providers involved with clients to provide information and obtain feedback on clients’ overall situation and progress, and identify additional or alternative services and provide referrals
- Evaluating the effectiveness of counselling programmes and interventions, and clients’ progress in resolving identified problems and movement toward defined objectives
Ways in
- University: Social Work & Community degrees, Offered by 1 universities in Singapore
Pay · Outlook · AI and this job
- Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
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Questions people ask
How do I become a Counsellor?
Ways in include: Social Work & Community degrees.
Will AI change the work of a Counsellor?
Generative AI can do relatively little of this work, by the ILO's global estimate.
Sources
- International Labour Organization, Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure (ILO Working Paper 140, Gmyrek et al.) (ILO Working Paper 140, May 2025, Annex Table A1), CC BY 4.0, retrieved 4 October 2026
Updated 4 October 2026