Most vulnerable pupils losing out as counselling hours cut in half

steddyeddy

Schools are spending less and less on providing a counselling service and in particular schools in disadvantaged areas are suffering more. In the eyes of the government not all kids are born equal. This isn't good enough on one hhand they talk about suicide prevention and on the other hand they pull services where they are needed. Surely people in disadvantaged areas can less afford to lose these services?

SCHOOLS are only spending half as much time on students who need one-to-one support as they did a year ago, according to a shocking new survey.
Teens struggling with difficult personal issues, such as bullying or family problems, or those who need extra help on CAO or other career-related decisions, are losing out badly.
Drastic cuts to guidance and counselling services have come at a time when schools are trying to deal with the growing problem of cyber-bullying, which was linked to at least two teen suicides in Ireland last year.
A particularly worrying feature of the survey findings is that schools in the vocational sector, which has the highest concentrations of pupils suffering disadvantage, are worst off.
At the other end of the scale, pupils in fee-paying schools have seen the least loss of guidance and counselling hours.
The full extent of cuts to guidance and counselling has emerged in an independent study, which compares the time devoted to those services in 2011/12 with the situation now.
Since September, the guidance and counselling service has had to be covered from within the school's general allocation of teaching hours, rather than having extra hours for it.
The move led to the abolition of about 500 state-paid posts, across 700 schools, forcing principals to stretch resources further and juggle priorities. An alternative to cutting guidance and counselling could be merging fifth- and sixth-year classes or higher- and ordinary-level students.
Guidance
As a result, guidance/counselling teachers are back in the classroom teaching a subject, at least some of the time, and even where they are doing their own specialist work, it is more likely to be with a full class rather than on a one-to-one basis.
One-third of the 745 second-level schools and further education/post-Leaving Certificate colleges participated in the survey, carried out on behalf of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors (IGC).
Key findings include:
? A 51pc reduction in the time spent on one-to-one counselling, with a drop from 2,777 hours across 241 schools in 2011/12 to 1,349 hours this year.
? An overall 21pc cut in hours spent on guidance and counselling services generally, with wide variations between the different school sectors.
Students in vocational schools and community colleges have seen a 31pc drop in overall hours for guidance and counselling, compared with 12pc in fee-paying schools.
Voluntary secondary schools – generally those run, or previously run by the religious – have cut the time by 21pc. In community and comprehensive schools it's down 20pc, and in further-education colleges there has been a 16pc drop.
IGC president Gerry Flynn said: "Cutting one-to-one counselling service in half at the time when young people are facing increasing challenges, such as bullying and the threat of suicide, is unconscionable."
The Economic and Social Research Institute also recently warned that the cuts left pupils exposed to making poor choices when they left school.
- Katherine Donnelly

El_Dangeroso

Just a question, did anyone ever have a guidance counsellor that wasn't completely **** at their job?

Mine was useless.

UCDVet

Maybe this is a good thing?

It's all about return-on-investment. The worst students, the ones who need the most help, learn at a slower rate. We could have a teacher spend a lot of hours with the slowest kid in the class and that kid might score better, but even with additional help, most will still struggle to just be an average student.

If you took the best students, the ones who learn the fastest...you could give THEM more 1-on-1 time and they'd learn far more from each session. With the extra attention and tutoring they'd excel even further. Improving the best Irish minds so that they can compete with the rest of the world on a global level.

steddyeddy

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Just a question, did anyone ever have a guidance counsellor that wasn't completely **** at their job?

Mine was useless.

As was mine but they're also cutting counselling services.

steddyeddy

UCDVet wrote: »

Maybe this is a good thing?

It's all about return-on-investment. The worst students, the ones who need the most help, learn at a slower rate. We could have a teacher spend a lot of hours with the slowest kid in the class and that kid might score better, but even with additional help, most will still struggle to just be an average student.

If you took the best students, the ones who learn the fastest...you could give THEM more 1-on-1 time and they'd learn far more from each session. With the extra attention and tutoring they'd excel even further. Improving the best Irish minds so that they can compete with the rest of the world on a global level.

So you are advocating a survival of the fittest approach to things. I cant understand how it's a good thing that counselling services are being cut for people who need it. If a student has other problems on top of his workload then we will not see a true reflection of his academic ability. Then again this is not an academic issue, this is an issue that students who may be be bullied or have any number of mental health problems are having their counselling services cut.

starlings

It may be better for students to avail of phone and web-based services as going to an office in the school building isn't so private, and, if the counsellor is a staff member, trust in authority might be a problem.

steddyeddy

starlings wrote: »

It may be better for students to avail of phone and web-based services as going to an office in the school building isn't so private, and, if the counsellor is a staff member, trust in authority be an issue.

Well there are ways around privacy issues. UCD and other universities run a free couselling service for people who may have problems.

spurious

School counsellors are supposed to refer on rather than deal with serious situations themselves.
I know our care team spend hours each week liaising with social workers, JLOs, HSE people on behalf of many kids. Not all parents are able to manage this themselves, so in many schools, it's the teachers that do it.

I agree with the OP though, the children hardest hit will be those who don't have the luxury of back up networks or parents who know or can afford to access them.

landsleaving

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Just a question, did anyone ever have a guidance counsellor that wasn't completely **** at their job?

Mine was useless.

Mine started writing for a newspaper about school, exams and so on. Must have been going well for him because he was rarely in the school and when he was he was utterly rubbish. I decided not to go on a transition year trip because a) I didn't want to, and b) family couldn't really afford it. I was made go have a 'chat' with him and he decided, after me telling him both of those things, that I was being bullied. I told him I wasn't, but he just ranted on and on about how I should tell him who it was.

Seriously. How this guy was employed, let alone writing as an education expert is beyond me.

smash

Schools have a counselling service?

steddyeddy

smash wrote: »

Schools have a counselling service?

Well I never had one myself but we cant base everything on what schools of the past had or hadn't got.

starlings

spurious wrote: »

School counsellors are supposed to refer on rather than deal with serious situations themselves.
I know our care team spend hours each week liaising with social workers, JLOs, HSE people on behalf of many kids. Not all parents are able to manage this themselves, so in many schools, it's the teachers that do it.

This makes a lot of sense, given that some of the problems faced by students will be directly school-related (falling behind, bullying by classmates) and some will not (trouble at home, mental health issues) and the student, stuck in the middle, will need help to unravel it all and get the most appropriate advice.

That's why I'm a bit ambivalent about cuts to staff counsellors - I think it was an add-on to their teaching duties in the first place -correct me if I'm wrong - unless the cuts mean this listening and referral is now finished.

meoklmrk91

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Just a question, did anyone ever have a guidance counsellor that wasn't completely **** at their job?

Mine was useless.

I had an exceptional one, wasn't a guidance counsellor just a counsellor but she was class and helped so many students like myself immensely, I don't know what I would have done without her.

starlings

UCDVet wrote: »

Maybe this is a good thing?

It's all about return-on-investment. The worst students, the ones who need the most help, learn at a slower rate. We could have a teacher spend a lot of hours with the slowest kid in the class and that kid might score better, but even with additional help, most will still struggle to just be an average student.

If you took the best students, the ones who learn the fastest...you could give THEM more 1-on-1 time and they'd learn far more from each session. With the extra attention and tutoring they'd excel even further. Improving the best Irish minds so that they can compete with the rest of the world on a global level.

I'm with you if you complete the picture by getting the brightest students to work with the weakest a few times a week. Surely if they get all that extra attention they'll be well able to break it down and pass it on?

KittyeeTrix

A week ago I would've said that there was no need for funding to be directed into counseling hours in schools...
Fast forward a week and my opinion has changed drastically. I received a phone call from my teenage daughters school counselor asking me to meet with her.
Turns out my daughter has been seeing her for 2 months to deal with a serious issue. Thank goodness she felt able to go till her school counselor and now we are in a position of knowledge about her situation and can support her accordingly!!!

Without her counselor on hand at her school to initially go talk to, the situation could have ended in terrible tragedy..

steddyeddy

starlings wrote: »

I'm with you if you complete the picture by getting the brightest students to work with the weakest a few times a week. Surely if they get all that extra attention they'll be well able to break it down and pass it on?

I'm not with him because his post doesn't take into consideration of any of the factors which contribute towards what makes a student a fast or slow learner.

steddyeddy

KittyeeTrix wrote: »

A week ago I would've said that there was no need for funding to be directed into counseling hours in schools...
Fast forward a week and my opinion has changed drastically. I received a phone call from my teenage daughters school counselor asking me to meet with her.
Turns out my daughter has been seeing her for 2 months to deal with a serious issue. Thank goodness she felt able to go till her school counselor and now we are in a position of knowledge about her situation and can support her accordingly!!!

Without her counselor on hand at her school to initially go talk to, the situation could have ended in terrible tragedy..

Fair play to your daughter for seeking help. Hope she's ok.

frozenfrozen

Mine is currently fcuking terrible, wouldn't effect me at all whatsoever if she were to lose her job in my school.

Chain_reaction

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Just a question, did anyone ever have a guidance counsellor that wasn't completely **** at their job?

Mine was useless.

Local girls school: "Nursing and primary teaching".
Local boys school: "Engineering and agri science".

From what I've been told its pretty much the same everywhere, in my old school I can re-call the resource teacher and home liaison officer being more of a councilor/liaising without side bodies than the actual guidance councilor which makes me think that being the guidance lady in my old school was beyond cushy as jobs go.

starlings

steddyeddy wrote: »

I'm not with him because his post doesn't take into consideration of any of the factors which contribute towards what makes a student a fast or slow learner.

Those factors should only be considered in a problem-solving context. Streaming isn't good IMO, but nor is trying to use the same tools on a diverse set of people. I was proposing a pooling of resources, which could bring out the best in fast and slow learners.

Lightbulb Sun

I'd be way quicker to cut funding for counselling from private schools. More than likely the parents of these kids have the money for therapists/external counsellers and consultants. Counsellers in disadvantaged schools might be the only thing those kids have. I went to a private school for 1 year and received good support with counselling there but I understand the absolute need for these services to be looked after first and foremost for the more disadvantaged and then the private schools should be a second priority.

Odysseus

Career guidance isn't therapeutic counselling and vice versa. Some guidance are also therapeutically trained but ASAIK most are not. So what is being cut here therapeutic counselling or guidance counselling anybody know. Once again AFAIK most schools have a guidance counsellor, but not a lot do not have any access to a psychotherapeutic counsellor or counselling psychologist.

Services like those available in universities like UCD etc are not available in schools

RaRaRasputin

What councelling is actually affected? Mental health issues or career guidance?

I didn't go to school here so I don't know about the school system (yet).
In my country we never had any councelling services but I never really saw the need for any.

Lightbulb Sun

RaRaRasputin wrote: »

What councelling is actually affected? Mental health issues or career guidance?

I didn't go to school here so I don't know about the school system (yet).
In my country we never had any councelling services but I never really saw the need for any.

Never saw the need? Come on, it's not like everyone goes through life leading perfectly healthy lives.

seven_eleven

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Just a question, did anyone ever have a guidance counsellor that wasn't completely **** at their job?

Mine was useless.

My guidance counsellor knew NOTHING about the school or college system in Ireland. She didnt understand the CAO, she didnt seem to understand anything other than "YOU NEED IRISH TO GET INTO EVERY COLLEGE IN IRELAND!!", she knew nothing about getting into specific careers, if somebody wanted to join the gardai she would be like "why dont you go get a law degree?" or if somebody wanted to join the ambulance service like myself and I knew nothing about it (I do now thankfully) I was told I had to go study medicine.

RaRaRasputin

Lightbulb Sun wrote: »

Never saw the need? Come on, it's not like everyone goes through life leading perfectly healthy lives.

Of course not, and I never claimed that. I just asked what sort of service this councelling is because I really don't know it.

I don't really see the need for a career guidance person constantly being in each school.

We also didn't have anyone dedicated to your mental health though I can see the need for a person like that in schools.

Lightbulb Sun

RaRaRasputin wrote: »

Of course not, and I never claimed that. I just asked what sort of service this councelling is because I really don't know it.

I don't really see the need for a career guidance person constantly being in each school.

We also didn't have anyone dedicated to your mental health though I can see the need for a person like that in schools.

I was referring to the counselling which is the mental health side of things. Also deals with kids effected by breakups, domestic issues, bullying etc.

RaRaRasputin

Lightbulb Sun wrote: »

I was referring to the counselling which is the mental health side of things. Also deals with kids effected by breakups, domestic issues, bullying etc.

Yes you are, but others hear are talking about the career orientated counselling, so I was wondering which will be abolished, or are those things done by the same person? I doubt it.

Strange, when people were in a bad state in our schools they had to see counsellors outside school or move schools...as I said I can see where people are coming from expecting these services in schools because it makes some sense, though I have to add that I never encountered a moment in my school life when someone urgently needed counselling in school itself.

But I guess my schooling experience was different than that in Ireland...

lazygal

landsleaving wrote: »

Mine started writing for a newspaper about school, exams and so on. Must have been going well for him because he was rarely in the school and when he was he was utterly rubbish. I decided not to go on a transition year trip because a) I didn't want to, and b) family couldn't really afford it. I was made go have a 'chat' with him and he decided, after me telling him both of those things, that I was being bullied. I told him I wasn't, but he just ranted on and on about how I should tell him who it was.

Seriously. How this guy was employed, let alone writing as an education expert is beyond me.

Can you link to his writing?

spurious

Lightbulb Sun wrote: »

I was referring to the counselling which is the mental health side of things. Also deals with kids effected by breakups, domestic issues, bullying etc.

That's the sort of work our counsellor mainly does. We are lucky to work in a City of Dublin VEC school as the CDVEC has a full-time psychological service that he can refer on the 'serious' cases to, if they are not being directed to an outside agency.

In the mind of a teenager, unfortunately, things that we as adults can shrug off often grow legs and become what they think are insurmountable problems.

token101

Probably for the best. My school had two guidance counsellors, really nice people, but ****ing useless. I remember going to one asking for advice on how I'd go to college in the UK. Her answer: "I don't know, but if you want to use my computer to check the internet you can".

Absolutezero

The real disadvantage we won't name in this country is who these kids are born to.

Odysseus

Absolutezero wrote: »

The real disadvantage we won't name in this country is who these kids are born to.

What?

previous user

can you get a Counsellor on a medical card?