The children act 2004 and implications for counselling in schools in england and wales

A questionnaire survey of 607 secondary schools in England and Wales, carried out in 2003\4, provided initial information on counselling as being a decentralized, largely school-based, demand-led, non-statutory, multi-sourced form of provision. It was mainly school funded, broadly child-centred and was provided by individual counsellors, who were directed by school managers in a loosely integrated manner. The advantages of school counselling were identified as benefiting individual pupils and as providing educational, behavioural and social benefits to the host school. The disadvantages were largely managerial and professional, i.e. related to resources and addressing the barriers to future service development.$r$n$r$nThe authors contrast this diverse, demand-led model of counselling provision with the emerging profile of counselling, provided by multi-agency teams, based in extended schools, which is promoted by the Green Paper, \Every Child Matters'. The community focus of such a model, and expectations of high levels of information sharing among professional staff with flexible role descriptions, are likely to present major challenges to existing role-based forms of school counselling. Particular issues explored are the professional orientation of the service, confidentiality and relationship with other professions.