Women's empowerment can be considered as a necessary tool to achieve gender equality and decrease the class differences between men and women (Vos, 2020). For this, the concept of women's empowerment has been identified as an important development factor. Indeed it is fundamental for the realization of human rights and the key to sustainable and effective socio-economic development (Sharma 2014: 143).

The world has grown and women have fought for their rights and currently hold managerial and leadership positions unlike in the earlier centuries. The presence of women in managerial teams is normally related to a healthy social commitment and enhanced participatory leadership style. An evaluation of the impact of women in business shows their influence leads to improved motivation and productivity. Cook, & Glass (2014) argue that one of the benefits associated with women's leadership and management is the promotion of work-family balance which is an imperative component or a nation's growth as well as bettering the quality of lives that families live.  
College and university learners must acclimatize to surroundings characterized by rapid variations, obscurity, and uncertainty and dwindling support systems. Students must manage with a selection of private and psychological difficulties caused by such environments. According to Coiro, Bettis, and Compas (2017) these problems range from normal change and growth, academic and learning and apprehensions about careers to clinical-level psychological illness. They have stated that there is a general agreement within higher education that the ubiquitous role of an individual and psychological counselling is to help students grow, adjust and learn while deterring dangerous and self-defeating tendencies hence allowing a person to succeed in the college community. Women leadership as discussed earlier robustly create an environment that allows guidance and psychological counselling in institutions to gain enormous support thus being effective.

Women in higher education leadership offer various advantages not only to the students but also to the staff of the educational institutions. Lammers & Gast (2017) state that women have a competitive edge for soft skills they inspire people to dream more, study more, work better and become better people in life. These soft skills make them compassionate towards people around them thus prompting them to develop an environment that helps the staff and students thrive and achieve their academic goals. One major way of developing such an environment is through the promotion of guidance and psychological counselling in these educational institutions. The need for guidance and psychological counselling in higher education institutions cuts across various stakeholders in these institutions. Morton and his colleagues (2014) argue that even though the existence of guidance and counseling departments exists in these institutions, employees rarely use these services. They state that an effective counseling environment for staff should be easy to access for both the employees and the counsellor, should be a safe place to discuss problems, help personnel to recognize their problems better, establish and develop coping skills, help them develop real resolutions to their problems and make employees learn to see issues more positively.

As an ongoing study, this research aims to investigate gender based-empowerment strategies in higher education institutions in Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), Iraq. Therefore, the research intends answering the following questions:

1. How women’s empowerment strategies offered by HEIs are perceived by participants?
2. What is the nature of women's empowerment strategies?
3. What are the strategies of empowering women through psychological counselling services (PCS)?
4. How does women’s participation in psychological counseling services empower them?
5. Are there any challenges confronting PCS in empowering female students and staff?
6. What is the way forward for offering effective PCS in higher education contexts?

The aim of this study is to get detailed and contextual information so qualitative methods are the most appropriate form of inquiry, therefore, we intend to use narrative method to collect data as we believe that narrative theory will provide us with a model that will serve to deepen our understanding of complex issues that face women in the Kurdish society. The broad areas of inquiry will be identified through examination of the literature and then refined in a focus group with the student and staff at universities. This will provide the framework for narrative interviews. This method of data collection is relevant to the research concerns and matches the authors academic backgrounds and professional skills as counselors. The interviews will be taped and then transcribed and coded using computer assisted software. Particular attention will be given to the participant from women about the ways they have claimed and re-claimed power in their lives, and their contribution to economic and social life. The theoretical assumptions of narrative psychological Counseling are based on a thorough understanding of the importance of cultural struggling and identify their battles of the individual. This primarily qualitative, longitudinal study proposes to examine the role of entrepreneurial networks both as a dependent and an independent variable in entrepreneurial activity. The research paradigm adopted would be phenomenological and the research approach would be inductive. The research strategy adopted would be case study based and the primary data collection method would be semi-structured interviews. A control group could be used to compare and contrast against the entrepreneurial group. The study may also contain a secondary, quantitative element such as network structural mapping.

Based on theoretical and empirical studies an effective and integrated empowering strategies could improve the participants management and leadership capabilities in which females applicants are treated equally and with respect and receive a well-organized clinical psychological counseling empowering services. Therefore, from professionalism to collaboration to a supportive management style and a cooperative problem-solving approach, women have skills that make them unique and invaluable assets. When they combine these aptitudes to fuel their leadership, they provide a conducive environment that promotes psychology and counseling in higher learning institutions. Counseling in these institutions not only affects the students positively but also enhances the productivity of staff by reducing their stress levels thus improving their job satisfaction levels. Psychological Counseling in developed countries is slowly picking up especially in institutions and if these countries want to achieve social and economic growth, then they need to embrace and incorporate counseling as part of their curriculum and daily operations.

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