Are all school counsellors captured?

[ellieboo9]

Not sure if this is the right section for this, but my 10 yr old DD has been experiencing some unkindness at school (other kids calling her weird) and is very down, saying she hates herself etc. She has suggested going to see the counsellor at school (a few of her classmates have been and always seem to come back with sweets and glitter in their hair which I think has piqued her interest). However, I'm wary of the whole idea as the website says the counsellor keeps everything confidential and won't tell parents what has been discussed. My biggest worry is that I have no idea what side of the fence the counsellor sits on and I fear she might suggest that DD's self-esteem issues stem from being trans. I'm also just generally uneasy about the idea of any adult being alone with my child and effectively having 'confidences' with her that I'm not party to. Am I overthinking this? How does counselling for kids usually work?

I’d agree with your wariness!

Counselling can be invaluable, but there needs to be a huge amount of trust in the counsellor, for both the child and their parents. I would strongly recommend meeting the counsellor first and making your own assessment. If you can afford it, maybe finding help outside school would work better for you - although it would probably lack the sweets and hair glitter attraction!

Find out where the counsellor comes from and check out their website. Most come from small charities and should be affiliated with BACP. Although that organisation is going down the captured route, at least the members have all been trained in ethics and should be putting the child at the centre of the work. You might find a local charity that can provide counselling for her. At her age it would be very unethical to open any discussion into sexuality. The work should be around strengths/feelings and developing a growth mindset.

It's normal to meet the counsellor first. Many also work privately so it is worth checking online profiles.

The most fervent believers in gender ideology tend to virtue signal quite a bit so it might be easy to find out. Check if they say online what their area of expertise and interest is, what extra training they've done. Given that counsellors in schools are typically less experienced, if they claim competence in anything "gender" I'd avoid. Non-ideological therapists know this area is a minefield at the moment and are less likely to advertise for it unless extremely established and experienced (but then they're probably not working for low wages in a school!).

If you can't work it out online, meet them and ask their thoughts. Check they are a member of a professional body such as bacp or ukcp. Say you are speaking in confidence to them and you don't give permission for them to keep a record of what you say.

I strongly recommend you don't let your dc go.

Giving dc sweets and glitter is incredibly manipulative and the counsellor should not engage these young children in this way. It reinforces the power imbalance between the counsellor and child / client and leaves the child feeling indebted / grateful for the sweet and glitter as well as the special attention this person is giving them.

Almost all of these 'counsellors' have done a fairly short training and they are NOT accredited counsellors they are child mental health practitioners. You could teach yourself the techniques they use form a couple of book son the topic on Amazon.

With or without the worry about trans ideology it is a highly questionable intervention, I know because my dc was offered it because her friends in school treated her badly and she was shy. One of her friends has been with our school's mental health practitioner for 3 years I didn't want this for my dc.

Instead, I bought a worry journal off amazon as well as a gratitude journal for her and for myself and every so often we sat together and filled in our journals and shared and talked about what we had written after. This helped normalise that everyone can feel bad about things or themselves and their relationships at times, even parents and that if we try and reframe some thing in a more optimistic and positive way we can see other aspects and opportunities to overcome difficulties, that are part of everyone's life. This helped her not fear feeling sad or anxious but accept it as part of a wide range of human emotions. We also talked about practical steps to tackle things that are causing issues at school. For us this approach worked well. I do not support half-baked pseudo psychology from strangers who for the most part have had max 12-18 months of training, many haven't been to university. There are some excellent child CBT books you can work through as well although it helps if you have done cbt yourself, which i have.

I studied psychology at university and have read dozens of self help and life philosophy books over the years. I am also a trained peer supporter for a charity. I believe firmly that empowering children so they feel they have some control and helping them see they can change many things that are difficult or not ideal but some things cannot be changed and they have to put up and adapt. That's life and it's best they learn this without being treated with special glitter and given treats to make them feel like they need to be mollycoddled. To me this approach reinforces the idea they are damaged and helpless rather than building them up. Most issues are part of normal life for kids, and if they are not, it's usually bullying related in which case the school has to deal with the bullies not give glitter and sugar to kids who are being bullied or there is neuro diversity in which case they will need specialist support, not a half baked mental health assistant. Children are vulnerable by definition and easy to influence, I do not at all trust anyone who will keep information from parents. It's a safeguarding red flag. In our case, my dc was actually given one of these session without the mental health support assistant actually obtaining my consent 😂Safe to say, this was the only session that I allowed to happen.

You should also know that your dc will miss out lesson time for this highly questionable intervention. Don't do it is my advice. Most issues can be resolved with loving and educated parental support.

Can you stop her seeing them? I thought kids could just pop in to see the school counsellor as they wished without it going via parents. If that is the case for your child’s school I’d suggest “letting” her, and having open and honest conversations.

That way if something like you’re worried about we’re to happen (which seems unlikely) she more likely to talk to you about it than if she had gone to see the counsellor in private knowing you disagreed.

why Is a counsellor giving the children sweets and putting glitter in their hair? Something a bit off there.

Thanks all for taking the time to respond - much appreciated. Yes, the glitter was a bit of a red flag for me, and I'm not on board with the idea of the kids doing counselling being marked as 'special' like this. It's not a drop in service, you sign up for a block of 6-10 hours, so she won't be able to go without my permission. From the responses so far, I think I'm going to trust my misgivings and give this a swerve.

Just realised I forgot i changed my name for this in case i outed myself as GC at school - too late!

I would be concerned about the glitter and sweets.
Counselling is supposed to be private, (not because its shameful) not everybody wants people to know that they have been to a counsellor or give a reason why.
That this person is announcing who is going to see them is very worrying.

From my experience they are totally captured, though mine was at an international school (with British curriculum) overseas. One of the many reasons why my child is no longer at that school!

I agree with @XNotT . I work in an adjacent field and know people who work as school "counsellors" who are not trained in counselling. It is often couched as offering children "someone to talk to". Hence the sweeties and glitter - actual counsellors know that this would be inappropriate.

Jesus I know people who work for the NHS as "counsellors" who are health care professionals who have done a short CBT course.

Follow XNotT's advice in the first instance and strongly encourage the school to deal with it's bullying problem.

School counselling is in theory a great idea. In reality most SC are captured as fuck as it’s staffed largely by very the recently qualified (whereas at least in the NHS there are still some old schoolers about).

Place2Be seems to be the main charity doing school based stuff (I would be very wary of this org) but some schools have Thrive in Education practitioners who are NHS employees - I found these to be great (they can even work with the parent to do a sort of proxy CBT where the practitioner works solely with the parent who implements the tweaks to home routines recommended- very good for helping build resilience and supporting the child in a healthy-futures way).

Is it normal at 10 for conversations to be confidential?

My 12 year old DD got a ‘gift’ from the school mental health provision but it’s a little wallet of laminated positive affirmations and mindfulness exercises, a notebook and an aromatherapy ‘calming’ hand cream — far more appropriate for a child struggling with self esteem/anxiety in school than fripperies like glitter and sweeties!

(This is going to be a long post and I might ask MN to delete after a few hours!)

Disclaimer: My DD doesn’t seem to have any identity or sexuality related issues nor any neurodiversities but she has seen a variety of mental health professionals.
Her difficulties arose after surviving serious illness (she has anxiety and PTSD type symptoms that have sometimes made her borderline agoraphobic and she struggles to relate to classmates after being in hospital/off school for over a year, followed by two years on the extremely clinically vulnerable list for covid). My DD started out with the hospital psychosocial service (under the CAMHS umbrella) where we saw three different clinical psychologists (due to maternity leaves!) and post-covid moved to seeing Thrive in Education, where we have again seen three different people, the first one my DD didn’t gel with, the second worked solely with me (due to my DD’s rejection of her colleague) and the third is based in a particular secondary school (we are about to start with a fourth due to changing schools).

The time period covered is year 2 (peak illness year) year 3 (peak covid year) year 4 (still a bit covidy) year 5, year 6 and now beginning of year 7.

We moved from the hospital psychosocial service to Thrive in Ed during year 4 and I saw the distance CBT-type person through the summer holidays into year 5. At the end of year 6 and through that summer my DD saw the Thrive practitioner who is attached to the secondary school my DD was given on national offer day, a school we hadn’t applied for and didn’t want, this practioner was amazing for keeping my DD engaged with education because we were very close to school refusal at that point).

IME the professional (whether hospital based or school based, qualified psychologist or Mental Health Practioner has always had very open comms with me (first appointment usually parent-only, second appointment both parent and child, then child only with check-ins between pro and parent via phone).
if something comes up that DD is reticent to share at home (usually for fear of making me sad/worried or because she is a bit scared of my ex/her dad) then the pro helps with that disclosure (by building confidence and then being present for an appointment with both child and parent).

Any risk factors such as self harm would be shared with me by phone immediately.

School counsellors (eg Place 2 Be) do not seem to do any of this (my DS saw one who was only slightly less than useful years ago, but my ASD/ADHD DS really enjoyed building lego in the counsellors room rather than being in boring classes 😆) and my DsD was literally encouraged to explore trans identity after saying she hated her newly emerging figure. Counsellor encouraged her to come out as trans which actually made it harder to intervene on what was really happening (an emergent restrictive eating disorder after sexual assault and focal aware seizures due to unrecognised epilepsy). If she were my bio daughter/I had parental responsibility I would take legal action against the school and Place 2 Be.

if my DsD had encountered the sort of services my DD has (where parents are pretty consistently kept in the loop) it would’ve given the counsellor (and her parents) a much wider picture, rather than everyone only ever having just part of the whole story, which sent everyone down a pointless cul de sac and ruined the parent/child relationship for a number of years.

Adult and child (in school and privately) counsellor here. Are you in the UK? I'd ask the school for the name of the counsellor and their membership body or qualifications.
Also, google them and see if they work privately. Their own website might have more info.
I generally don't communicate with the parents when I work in a school setting, safeguarding issues go via the school process. However, if a parent contacted me directly (I have a school email address) asking me about my qualifications and what a general direction of sessions would be, I'd happily answer. I wouldn't engage in breaking confidentiality and telling you what was said in the session though. You'll hopefully get a feel of what they're like through their response.

School councillor gives children sweets and glitter if they speak to the councillor in private.

for primary school kids as long as the child hasn't disclosed anything that needs reporting then the most they should give the child is maybe a leaflet that says something non descript about the fact that all children sometimes feel unhappy but it usually resolves itself quite quickly etc

But sweets....Hell no! Groomers of children use sweets and small trinkets to gain the child's trust

Keep your daughter far away!

If you think she needs counselling, find a sensible counsellor and pay them yourself.

In my experience these unqualified "counsellors" in education are utterly captured.

@NoMoreRedWineforFreda I’m so sorry your daughter went through that! Hope she’s on the mend 💐

As for what happened with your DSD 😱
My youngest is autistic, has very intense (but relatively short lived) obsessions with various identities, it worries me that he can identify as whatever he likes and it’s fine, but if he ever identifies as a girl school will be all over it with the validation. It’s such a worry.

@imaginationhasfailedme so that sounds like you would keep information given by a 10 year old from his/her parents? Is that normal at such a young age?

My daughter had counselling at 17, and understandably this was between her and the therapist - luckily dd talked about what was being said, and that the therapist was projecting her own past experiences onto dd and encouraging dd (autistic and vulnerable, was living at home with a large amount of support necessary) to go no contact with us!
This was an apparently highly qualified therapist as well.

Please can I ask a question as well? My dd is in year 5 now and was offered this school mental health intervention in year 4.

Her teacher at the time suggested this 'support' as my dd was being ganged up on by a few friends. She was shy and unassertive at the time and her friends picked on her constantly. Thankfully this has been more or less resolved now.

I know for a fact that the mental health practitioner had to ask for our parental consent but there was some sort of mix up and my dd had a session without us having given consent at all. I didn't make a fuss at the time as things were difficult enough.

Seeing that she had one session, will this show on her school record even though she didn't continue? And if yes, is this sort of information shared with anyone for example when they move up to secondary school?

I do subject access requests for all my DD’s school and NHS records simply because she has a complex medical and psychological history and a complete record of my own is useful when engaging with various agencies, which aren’t particularly well joined up, especially as she goes to school in a neighbouring borough (once they are old enough to be considered ‘Gillick Competent’ they need to give permission themselves).

I would do an SAR for school records now and then you will know exactly what is recorded.

(I’m personally fine with recorded info being shared between various professionals but I do like to ensure the info shared is accurate because an awful lot of mistakes pop up, eg ‘exome’ autocorrected to ‘eczema’!)

I’m incredibly frustrated to learn that schools are failing to tackle bullying and are instead offering mental health support to the bullied!

I agree with this.

Although, actually, a counsellor to coach the parent through supporting the child or if that’s financially inaccessible, a book to guide parents through supporting their child is probably better than the child engaging directly with MH services.

Many years ago I did 6 months of intense Multi Systemic Therapy (3 sessions a week!) to help my (then) wayward son, which was truly brilliant and made a massive difference.

A cut down version of MST would be much better for primary age to mid teen kids than a school counsellor who doesn’t communicate with the family at all, imo.

I will dig out the book that I was given by the Thrive in Ed practitioner who worked with me after my DD refused direct sessions with her colleague (that was end of year 4 through start of year 5 so the right age group for this thread).

How do I do a SAR @NoMoreRedWineforFreda and will the school think I'm being difficult for requesting this?

https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/schools/pupils-info/

Just email (or drop a written letter in to) the school asking for a complete copy of your child’s school record as a Subject Access Request.

’Dear School,
This is a Subject Access Request for a full copy of my child’s (name, DOB) school record. The SAR regulations specify that a response to my request must be received within 30 days. Information for schools on SAR and GDPR is available at the following link https://www.gdpr.co.uk/subject-access-requests

Thanks in advance!

Name, Mother of Child Name’

School might mutter about the extra work behind your back but they are legally obliged to comply and you probably aren’t the first/won’t be the last to request a copy.

If anyone casually asks you why you aren’t obligated to answer but it’s probably easiest just to say something like ‘Oh, a friend of mine has had some complications re: her child’s secondary school transition and she said having her own copy of school records at hand was SO helpful that I am following her advice - will be applying for her year 6 records when primary school is over but thought I’d get ahead of it now’.

I can't tell you how valuable these responses are, I'm going to go through them with DH later (he thinks I'm overstating the concerns).

And yes, totally agree with those saying that schools should be tackling the bullying rather than just funnelling kids into "mental health" support!