On conclusion of the tender and contract process the service was established in May 2006 and provides a half-time professionally qualified psychotherapist/counsellor.
The systems and processes for the project have been developed including:
Referral pathways
Referral system/pathway - a referral process has been set up with all young people being referred either through the school nurse or through guidance staff as identified below:
Consultation forms
Consultation forms were developed to record the required information for the Service as follows.
Post-counselling evaluation forms
There are three post-counselling evaluation forms which have been developed as follows.
Statistics
The collection of statistics is important for the service as it looks at the impact it is having in the Kelso area and for future funding purposes given that the funding is short-term (due to end in June 2007). The project needs to be able to prove the difference it is making.
Some of the key aspects of information being collected include:
- numbers and attendance figures
- reasons for referral
- numbers referred on
- contact time.
The school counsellor was involved in raising awareness of the service by attending personal and social education (PSE) classes, involvement with teaching staff and other agencies.
It was felt that it was important to create an appropriate space for the counselling to take place. A space was identified and it was refurbished to provide a supportive space and to provide confidentiality. The space created can also be used by others in the school when the counselling service is not operating.
In addition to working directly with young people, the other part of the school counsellor’s remit is to work with guidance staff and the school nurse. Supportive supervision sessions have been set up to provide additional support to the school nurse and guidance staff to ensure they feel confident and able to support the young people they are working with.
