The College employs Counsellors and Psychologists to support the social, emotional, behavioural and academic growth of students across Prep to Year 12.
Services include:
- Short-term, individual counselling intervention (6 + 4 model of sessions, where the individual clinician will determine if an additional four sessions are required after an initial six. Therefore, making total sessions 6 or 10.) There is potential for ongoing sessions – due to the nature of the situation which is dependent on the student.
- Wellbeing Space access for students in Years 7 – 12.
- Blue card with yearly access to the wellbeing space (must be renewed each year)
- Cognitive and educational assessments and psychometric screeners.
- Parent and teacher consultation.
- Classroom observations.
- Therapeutic groups (run by individual counsellors)
- Teens, tweens and parents connect programs (run by the counselling team)
- Dogs connect (wellbeing dog in the wellbeing space every Thursday)
- Supporting referrals to external agencies.
- Risk assessments (see below)
If a staff member becomes aware that a student is at risk of harm to self (either the student themselves telling, friend/parent of the student informing you, or staff observations of behaviour indicative of this), they must immediately email:
- Primary students: [email protected]
- Secondary students: [email protected]
This email is received via the counselling inbox, and the staff member monitoring the inbox then evaluates the need for a risk assessment and coordinates which clinician will be available to conduct the risk assessment. (note: the entire risk assessment process is documented into halaxy)
When a clinician conducts a risk assessment with a student they must:
- Deem whether a verbal or written risk assessment will take place and conduct the assessment
- Complete a safety plan with the student – depending on level of risk
- Write a case note using the risk assessment template and follow the prompts
- Inform a parent of the risk assessment, even if the result was ‘no risk’
- Record the risk assessment in the data tab on the counselling team spreadsheet
- Email the following staff of the outcome:
- House Leader
- Director of Student Wellbeing
- Director of Counselling and Wellbeing Services
- LDL (if relevant)
- Referrer
- Scan the risk assessment and safety plan into the students halaxy profile
Internal referral process, outlined below:
All counselling and blue card referrals are made via Simon. Teacher or student and parents can complete them via PAM. Once a referral is made in PAM or Simon, a link to the completed form is generated and sent to the counselling inbox. The staff member monitoring the inbox is responsible for reviewing the Microsoft Form with the referral details, and inputting this to the counselling team spreadsheet. Each Monday the referrals are distributed amongst the counselling team.
Students in Prep – Year 12 may be referred for any of the above services by a parent or staff member. Additionally, students in Year 7 – 12 may choose to self-refer to counselling services.
All queries regarding referrals to counselling services can be directed to the Director of Counselling P-12. For general enquiries please e-mail [email protected]