Counselling Pupils in Schools

Skills and Strategies for Teachers

Carol Hall, Eric Hall, Garry Hornby

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134726073
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

How can teachers support children with emotional or social difficulties?
Counselling Pupils in Schools is a comprehensive guide to the effective use of counselling in schools. It provides practical guidance for teachers and those responsible for pastoral care on how to develop counselling skills and intervention strategies. The book combines theory and research with practical classroom strategies designed to focus on the social and emotional development of students and their teachers.
Topics covered include:
* a model for counselling in school
* skills and intervening strategies for teachers
* cross-cultural and sensitive issues
* peer counselling and support
* empowering pupils and parents
* classroom-based activities
The ethics of teacher-student relationships are also discussed and teachers are provided with ideas for collaboration and managing their own stress in order to be more effective in counselling and guidance.
This book is relevant to all professionals who work with young people: Teachers, PSHE co-ordinators, SENCos, Education Welfare Officers and Educational Psychologists will find it particularly useful.

1 Teachers and counselling

Garry Hornby

First toad was nursed by his friends. Then they encouraged him. Then they told him, quite sternly, to pull himself together. Finally, they spelled out the drab and dismal future facing him unless he ‘got a grip of himself’… But none of this had any effect on Toad…. Finally, Badger could stand it no longer… ‘There is only one thing left. You must have counselling!’

(de Board, 1998, p. 3)

Various authors estimate that between 10 and 20 per cent of school-age children exhibit emotional and behavioural problems (Kottler and Kottler, 1993; Vernon, 1993; Mental Health Foundation, 1999; Thompson and Rudolph, 2000). This reinforces the importance of teachers being able to use basic counselling skills in order to help a substantial number of their students. In fact, Mosley (1993, p. 105) firmly believes that ‘personal counselling is an essential activity which should be included in all schools’. In order to fulfil their pastoral duties and play their part in the teaching of personal and social education (PSE), all teachers need to have basic counselling skills, and at least one teacher in each school needs to have developed specialist expertise in counselling (McGuiness, 1998). The purpose of this book is to help classroom teachers, and those in schools responsible for pastoral care and PSE, to develop effective counselling skills and intervention strategies.

What is counselling?

Counselling is the skilled and principled use of a relationship to facilitate self-knowledge, emotional acceptance and growth, and the optimal development of personal resources. The overall aim is to provide an opportunity to work towards living more satisfyingly and resourcefully.

(British Association of Counselling, 1991, p. 1)

This definition is in accord with the way counselling is viewed in this book as being used in schools. The goals identified in the definition are ones which are encompassed by the overall aims of education. Schools aim to facilitate their students’ self-knowledge and emotional acceptance. They also aim to promote personal growth and optimal development of each student’s potential, the ultimate aim of education being to produce contented, productive and resourceful citizens. In schools, the relationship referred to in the definition is typically not one of counsellor to client but that of teacher to pupil. As suggested, this relationship needs to be based on certain theoretical principles and to involve the use of specific counselling skills.

Rationale for developing counselling skills

Teachers are in an ideal position to help children with their social and emotional development (McLaughlin, 1999). Since they see pupils regularly over a long period of time and have extensive experience of children’s development they are able to identify those children who are experiencing difficulties. They can then mobilise the school’s pastoral care or guidance network to deal with these difficulties, either by helping the students themselves, referring them on to others, or by using the school’s personal and social education pro-gramme. Teachers are also in an ideal position to bring their concerns to the attention of parents and offer guidance on different strategies and sources of help which may be needed.

In order to optimise the help they can provide to children and to their parents, teachers need to develop their knowledge and skills in the areas of counselling and consultation. Support for the idea of teachers being able to use basic counselling skills comes from publications in the field of pastoral care (e.g. Hamblin, 1993; Lang, 1993) as well as from Government reports on the topic of guidance in schools. For example, one of the recommendations of the Elton Report (1989) on discipline in schools was that training in basic counselling skills should be included in initial teacher training and be provided to staff involved in pastoral care who are already in schools by means of in-service training.

Over the past thirty years, increasing emphasis has been placed on the provision of pastoral care at all levels of the education service. There is now a greater realisation that there is a sizeable proportion of troubled and troublesome children in schools and a greater understanding of the kinds of needs they have. Incidents such as the murder of a toddler by two primary school children in Liverpool and the spate of shootings of school children by adolescents in the US have further emphasised the importance of the school’s role in promoting healthy social and emotional development.

Also, teachers are now expected to work more closely with parents and other professionals such as psychologists and social workers. In addition, senior teachers are expected to be able to support and appraise other teachers. To fulfil their roles in each of these areas teachers need to possess basic counselling skills.

Difficulties for teachers in fulfilling their counselling and guidance role

The current emphasis on reforming school curricula and promoting academic success, which is evident in many countries around the world, has focused attention away from the broader function of schools which is to produce productive, fulfilled citizens. When schools are mainly concerned with ‘delivering’ an academic curriculum, other aspects of the school’s role, such as providing personal and social education, tend to be overlooked. This leads to insufficient attention being paid to the needs of children for counselling and guidance and therefore also to a lack of appreciation for the key role which teachers can play in meeting these needs.

Lane (1996) notes that British schools do not have trained counsellors on their staff and that few of the teachers in senior positions in the pastoral network are trained in the use of counselling skills. She, therefore, expresses concern about the general lack of counselling expertise available to help children or their parents. A further problem concerns what teachers generally understand counselling to be. Lane (1996) suggests that there is a continuum of helping strategies typically used in schools which ranges from directing, advising, informing, teaching and supporting through to counselling. She comments that when teachers use the term counselling they are, in fact, referring to some or all of the approaches within the continuum of strategies listed above. Furthermore, she suggests that teachers tend to use more helping strategies at the directing and advising end of the continuum rather than at the supporting and counselling end.

Regardless of the above difficulties it is inescapable that many children are in desperate need of counselling and guidance and that teachers are ideally placed to provide this. In fact, it is often the case that pupils are more likely to open up with teachers they know well than with others in the education system, such as guidance counsellors and educational psychologists, who are usually more qualified in counselling and have more time to do it, but do not have the rapport with pupils which comes from day-to-day contact. So it seems that, difficulties or not, teachers have a vital role to play in the school’s pastoral care system or guidance network.

The place of counselling in the provision of pastoral care

The position taken in this book is that counselling should be an essential element of the pastoral care which schools provide for their students. Pastoral care is taken to be that part of the educational process which is concerned with providing help in the areas of personal, social and moral development, educational guidance and vocational guidance. Pastoral care is considered to be a central feature of the education offered to all young people.

As illustrated in Figure 1.1, counselling is seen as one strategy for dispensing pastoral care which should be available alongside the other major pastoral strategies of guidance and PSE.

Figure 1.1 The place of counselling in the pastoral system.

These pastoral strategies are at the centre of the school’s pastoral care provision. The school’s pastoral provision encompasses the structure of the pastoral network, staff expertise and the different methods through which PSE is provided. This pastoral provision is set within the context of the whole school experience which has an impact through school policies on such things as curriculum, discipline, special needs and parental involvement. The whole school experience is impacted by societal influences which include the organisation of the education system, the economic, legal and political systems and the cultural and religious values of the society.

Pastoral strategies

These are the means by which the pastoral care provided by the school is dispensed to students. There are three major pastoral strategies: counselling, guidance and PSE.

Counselling

Counselling in schools involves helping students individually or in small groups to deal with the concerns or difficulties they are experiencing. It is considered that four levels of counselling need to be in evidence in schools (Hamblin, 1993; Lang, 1993).

• Level (1) is the use of counselling skills in the classroom in order to provide a positive learning environment and promote high levels of pupil self-esteem.
• Level (2) is the use of counselling skills by the form tutor in order to help pupils solve day-to-day problems, as well as the use of counselling skills to facilitate group activities as part of the school’s PSE programme.
• Level (3) is the individual or small group counselling available from a trained specialist within the school. This could be a school counsellor or guidance counsellor, head of year or house, or a senior teacher who has a pastoral leadership role within the school.
• Level (4) involves referral procedures to help pupils access professionals outside the school, such as psychologists and psychiatrists, for specialist counselling help.

All teachers need to develop basic counselling skills, sufficient to fulfil their roles as classroom teachers and form tutors at levels (1) and (2). In addition, at least one member of the staff should have had further training in counselling in order to provide intensive counselling at level (3) and to know when and where to refer pupils for specialist help outside the school at level (4). This member of the staff should also provide training, supervision and support to teachers in their work at levels (1) and (2).

Guidance

Guidance involves helping students individually or in small groups with making personal, educational or vocational choices. It is considered that four levels of guidance need to be in evidence in schools.

• Level (1) is the provision of information by classroom teachers as part of a wide range of subjects in the curriculum in order to provide pupils with the knowledge needed to make personal, educational and vocational choices.
• Level (2) is the use of guidance by form tutors in order to help pupils make personal, educational and vocational choices. This can be provided individually or as part of the school’s PSE programme.
• Level (3) is the individual or small group guidance available from a trained specialist within the school. This could be a careers officer or guidance counsellor, head of year or house, or a senior teacher who has a pastoral leadership role within the school.
• Level (4) involves referral procedures to help pupils access agencies outside the school, such as careers, services or job placement agencies.

All teachers need to have a basic knowledge of guidance, sufficient to fulfil their roles as classroom teachers and form tutors at levels (1) and (2). In addition, at least one member of the staff should have had further training in order to provide intensive guidance at level (3) and to know which agencies to refer pupils to outside the school at level (4). This member of staff should also act as a resource to other teachers in the school.

Personal and social education

A personal and social education programme, which also includes moral and vocational education, is an essential part of the pastoral care provision of every school. There are three ways in which PSE is carried out in schools.

• PSE is infused into all subjects across the curriculum. All teachers cover aspects of PSE as part of their subject teaching. For example, mathematics teachers will cover budgeting, social studies teachers will address the issue of discrimination and science teachers will cover sex education.
• PSE is included in the tutorial work programme. Form tutors teach it to their tutor groups, along with other activities, during form periods.
• PSE is taught as a separate subject. PSE is regarded as a specific subject on the school’s curriculum. It is taught by form tutors or by specialists such as guidance counsellors or guidance teachers, or by some combination of these.

The content of PSE programmes varies from school to school. Many schools use published materials such as Active Tutorial Work (Baldwin and Wells, 1979) while others have developed and use their own materials or use a combination of their own and published materials. Both primary and secondary school programmes will address aspects of health education and moral education as well as personal and social development, which may be done in separate...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Contributors
• 1: Teachers and Counselling
• 2: A model for Counselling in Schools
• 3: Exploration of Concerns and Feelings
• 4: Strategies for Intervention
• 5: Empowering Children and Young People
• 6: The Emotional Development Curriculum
• 7: Peer Counselling and Support
• 8: Empowering Parents and Families
• 9: Cultural Issues in Counselling
• 10: Coping With Loss and Trauma
• 11: Counselling for Sensitive Issues
• 12: Counselling and Guidance of Parents
• 13: Learning to Collaborate Working Across the Divide
• 14: Coping with Stress and Avoiding Burn-Out
• 15: Ethical Issues in Counselling for Teachers