Guidance counsellors have nothing to fear

LEFTFIELD:NEXT WEEKEND over 500 guidance counsellors will gather for their annual conference, their first major gathering since the Budget cuts which could transform their working situation. Under the Budget changes, schools will no longer enjoy a specific allocation of teaching hours for guidance and counselling, but will in future have to resource it from within their standard allocation of teaching hours. In practical terms, many counsellors feared they could be forced to abandon their duties and return to the classroom as subject teachers.

This decision has provoked a lively and healthy debate about the role of the guidance counsellor. There have been many contributors to the debate, some of whom recounted negative stories of their experience of guidance and counselling in their school days.

Thanks to this debate, the role of guidance and counselling is now much better understood by parents, policy makers and the general public. Whereas most people in the past associated guidance counsellors with CAO choices, few appreciated their wider role in areas such as psychometric testing, Leaving Certificate subject choice and one-on-one counselling.

Out of that debate has now come a new Department of Education circular which puts in place a very solid and robust set of regulations to govern the management of guidance and counselling in schools.

We live in very difficult circumstances and all of us, including those fortunate to be employed by the State, have to constantly find ways to deliver services in the most cost-effective manner. Guidance counsellors should be greatly encouraged by the new regulations.

The circular clearly lays out that the provision of guidance continues to remain a statutory requirement for schools under Section 9 of the Education Act 1998, ie, to “ensure that students have access to appropriate guidance to assist them in their educational and career choices”. Schools are still required to use their available resources to discharge those functions and must, from September 2012, use their standard allocation for the provision of guidance to students.

The circular goes on to say that each school should develop collaboratively a school guidance plan as a means of supporting the needs of its students. The school’s guidance planning should involve the guidance counsellor(s) in the first instance.

Schools should also maximise the use of their available resources for the provision of guidance. They are also asked to:

– optimise the delivery of personal, educational, career and vocational guidance in class group settings,

– enable students to use the extensive range of guidance tools available through the internet from relevant websites (eg, Qualifax, Careers Portal),

– enable some of the curriculum elements of the planned guidance programme to be delivered through other teachers such as SPHE staff,

– maximise the role of the student support or pastoral care team in schools, and

– ensure that the guidance counsellor has one-on-one time towards meeting the counselling needs of students experiencing difficulties or crises.

Crucially the circular says that – notwithstanding the budget measure – “it remains the case that a person being assigned as guidance counsellor must be a qualified second-level teacher and, in addition, hold the relevant recognised qualification for school guidance work”.

The circular has also promised some relief for schools struggling to provide good counselling services with possible gaps in subject teachers. In my view this circular invites every second-level guidance counsellor to present a guidance plan to their board of management based on the provisions set out above. If they do so, they will have the full support of the Department for the delivery of a high-quality service to their students.

Brian Mooney is a former president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors