It is very confusing - it confuses me and I'm both a counsellor and an adopter!! I remember the back and forth in the professional journals about what this law meant for counsellors - what would happen if you started working with a client without knowing they were adopted and learnt this during the work? Or if you were working say for an eating disorders charity, and a client wanted counselling for an eating disorder and also was an adoptee, would you have to refuse to see them and send them to an adoption service? I don't remember any satisfactory answers, and I strongly believe many counsellors are completely unaware a) of this requirement and b) of why it matters.
Beryl as far as school's suggestion goes, if you want to go ahead with counselling for your DC you might find it is you educating both the school and the suggested counsellor about the necessity to have a counsellor who is registered as an adoption support agency - the school isn't Ofsteded as an adoption support agency, so having a contract with them won't do the trick. Sorry, all this doesn't help much in deciding whether counselling will be right for your DC, and maybe you can't know. I dithered about when would be the right time for DD to have the lifestory therapy and was very worried about how bad her behaviour might get as her past was raised, and how I'd cope with that, as at the time it was suggested we were having a bad patch. In the end I couldn't see how I'd know what the fallout would be, other than to try it and see. I suppose what I might be thinking about from what you've said, is are school suggesting it because they think it'll help your DC in themselves as a human, or is it more that they think it'll improve behaviour, which while it might make your DCs life at school easier and more pleasant, is also of course about the school's needs/wishes. If you see what I mean. Because in the second circumstance, what would happen if you DC got into counselling and their behaviour in school took a massive nosedive, would the school be wanting to pull the counselling, or even cut the funding for it, if it didn't have the result they expect/hope for?