The role of Guidance Counsellors is to provide counselling, student support, classroom support and assessment services to assist students in our Catholic schools.
Students may be referred for brief intervention either individually or via small groups, to assist with a range of challenges such as social skills, emotional regulation strategies and grief and loss.
Students may also be referred for psycho-educational assessment. Access to assessment and classroom support requires teacher and classroom planning, intervention and monitoring before proceeding.
Students in secondary schools can self-refer, or be referred via their pastoral leader, member of their Leadership Team or parents.
Support provided by Guidance Counsellors is not a replacement for psychological therapies and students requiring intensive support should be referred to a private psychologist or alternatively to one of the publicly available services.
Conversations with Guidance Counsellors are typically confidential, however there are circumstances in which matters cannot be kept confidential (E.g. student safety/self-harm/child abuse or neglect) and in those cases information may need to be provided to a Parent/School Principal/Child Safety. Guidance Counsellors will discuss with parents and students the limits to confidentiality during the consent process prior to commencing counselling.
Please see here for access to the Guidance Counsellors in Secondary Schools brochure.
