Guidance Counsellor

The guidance counsellor's role is to help students:

Personal and Family Counselling
Through personal or family counselling, liasing with teachers or parents, and where necessary referring to outside agencies (who may then work with the Guidance Counsellor).

Serious issues like youth depression, anxiety and suicide and programmes to enhance self-esteem, motivation and deal with emotions are core business for guidance counsellors.

Ascertainment
Ascertainment or assessment of students with special needs, eg. through psychometric testing, assessment of learning difficulties, providing information to assist teachers to modify or extend classroom programmes.

Career Guidance
Career Guidance is an essential part of the Guidance Officer's job.

You can ask for help or information about:

* career planning
* subject selection
* choosing a future job of career
* help with job seeking, preparation of resume etc.
* choosing courses or finding pathways to particular careers
* early entry programmes (where you gain a place at university or TAFE before results are known)
* scholarships - for sporting or academic excellence, for indigenous students or for students financially disadvantaged
* special consideration for QTAC for students disadvantaged in their schooling.

Conflict Resolution
Conflicts can be mapped and issues given new perspectives to help improve relationships.

Peer Mediation and Support
The peer mediation programme is now four times bigger with the number of mediators increased from 6 to 24. There are now senior mediators helping to mentor the year 11 students in this program, passing on their knowledge to the up and coming mediators.

The mediators lend support to the incoming year 8s, through peer support.

Gerry King
Guidance Counsellor