Counsellors barred from urgently needed school roles

Qualified counsellors are barred from applying for hundreds of urgently-needed school-based mental health support roles, despite a $106.7m state government pledge to give every Queensland state school student access to professional help by June

Qualified counsellors are barred from applying for hundreds of urgently-needed school-based mental health support roles, despite a $106.7m state government pledge to give every Queensland state school student access to professional help by June this year.

Youth workers, guidance officers, social workers and psychologists are all able to apply for jobs under the Student Wellbeing Package, but trained counsellors cannot.

The Department of Education is adamant it is on track to having professionals in all schools by the middle of the year and has, to date, recruited enough mental health professionals to service 75 per cent of all state schools.

But in the wake of a number of high-profile student deaths by suicide, including 13-year-old Beaudesert State High School student Onyx Rose Lambert last July and 13-year-old Atherton State High School student Corrine Lee-Cheu in September, the Australian Counselling Association is urging the government to change the rules and allow counsellors to also be considered for in-school roles.

Beaudesert State High School student Onyx Rose Lambert. Photo: Facebook.

“We can provide crisis management and de-escalation, we can also help to reduce stress and anxiety and help students to return back to the classroom and perform better at school,” ACA chief executive Jodie McKenzie said.

“No firm answer has been provided to us on why counsellors cannot fill in-school mental health practitioner roles.”

In an email sent to Ms McKenzie in December, former education minister Grace Grace said there were “no immediate plans to expand the package to include the employment of counsellors”.

A Department of Education spokesman told The Courier-Mail that 940 Queensland state schools currently had access to wellbeing professionals and at this point only qualified psychologists, social workers, guidance officers and youth workers were considered for roles.

The Victorian government has recently changed its policy and now recruits “counsellors of a prescribed class” – someone who has completed a Bachelor of Counselling or Master of Counselling and is a member of the Australian Counselling Association or the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia – into schools.

Queensland teenager Corrine Lee-Cheu. Photo: Supplied.

“Victoria sees counsellors as a solution to ease the mental health practitioner shortage. It is now harder for the other states to not turn around and make the same change,” Ms McKenzie said.

Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australian chief executive Johanna de Wever said there were many former teachers with counselling qualifications who should be allowed to apply for the roles.

“Quite a significant proportion of our members become counsellors because they previously worked as teachers, have seen the high levels of need in the community and were motivated to go and do additional training and change careers later in life,” she said.

“So for them, not to be able to contribute to their communities when they know it is so badly needed, is really frustrating.

“They are really well-placed to work in schools – they have significant community experience and are comfortable in that role and can be really valuable.

“Some other teachers do a training qualification in guidance and counselling and become guidance officers, who can work in schools and are regarded as part of the teaching staff.”