What is School Counselling
School based counselling can help support the mental, emotional and social needs of children and young people. It provides a safe, private, regular space to talk through their thoughts and feelings with a trained Counsellor. They can talk about difficulties that are important to them and work at their own pace. We will listen without judgement and work alongside them in understanding their experience.
We practice from within the person-centred discipline of counselling. This is predominantly a talking therapy, however we work flexibly and creatively to help any young person to engage and communicate.
We offer core therapeutic conditions within a safe, supportive and confidential space, these are:
- active listening, warmth and empathic reflection
- validation, genuineness and acceptance
- respect without judgement
- a secure and trusting working together relationship
- confidentiality
The School Counselling Service respects a child and young person’s rights to privacy and confidentiality. This means that we will not share the content of a session unless there is a concern that someone is at risk. A child or young person may have the capacity to give informed, self-consent for counselling or it may be that we need to ask a parent or carer to support consent. Sometimes young people want to access School Counselling without their parent/carers knowledge and where appropriate this is accepted. Often this is about protecting a private space for the confidential nature of their counselling. Working in partnership with parents and carers in a way that does not impinge on a child or young person’s engagement in counselling is really important to the success of the counselling.