In Week 3, I had the great pleasure of meeting a number of parents during our very first Sync with the Psych session at St Andrew’s. This was a fantastic opportunity to not only introduce myself and connect with parents, but to also hear from our parent community about issues that are of concern to them. Giving the parent community a ‘voice’ was certainly high on our agenda for this meeting. For those who were not able to make it, below is a brief summary of the key themes and discussions that came out of this session.

The School Counselling Service

Parents expressed a keen interest in understanding the School Counselling Service and the referral process.  The School Counselling service at St Andrew’s is staffed by highly qualified registered psychologists who work closely with all members of the St Andrew’s community to provide short-term counselling and support services to students and their families.

Broadly speaking, the School Counselling Service aims to:

• Provide a confidential and supportive counselling service for students Prep-Year 12
• Collaborate with and support the pastoral care team to address the wellbeing needs of students
• Identify areas of student needs and work with key staff to develop wellbeing programs
• Make referrals to- and liaise with external professionals where appropriate

Referrals to the School Counselling Service are encouraged to be made via the Pastoral Care Team in Primary and Secondary School. Where appropriate, we will also accept self-referrals in the Secondary School. The School Counselling office is located in Student Services in H Block.

At St Andrew’s we are fortunate to have two College Psychologists – Dr Jasmine Green (Mon, Tues & Wed) and Natalie Rooskov (Thurs & Fri). If you would like to make contact with us, please email us at counselling@saac.qld.edu.au

Confidentiality

College Psychologists are registered psychologists who must abide by a strict code of ethics. One area that is particularly important to young people is the issue of confidentiality. Psychologists must comply with legislation, policy and professional standards in relation to confidentiality of information disclosed, recorded and stored about students and families. Prior to delivering the counselling service, the psychologist will always inform the student / parent of the limitations to confidentiality.

Consent – Parental Consent must be obtained when the student is in Primary School. Student Consent alone may be relied upon when the student is in Secondary School and is deemed to have the capacity to give informed consent.

Parent Engagement  

There is no denying it, these are busy times for our families. So it comes as no surprise that the question arose of how best to engage the parent community. Some ideas were put forward to consider rethinking the timing of the parent conversation sessions, ways to actively promote upcoming guest speakers, provide live streaming of parent seminars to those parents who can’t make it, offer babysitting services for single parent families etc.

Many parents also expressed a desire to be ‘better informed & equipped’ to deal with possible wellbeing and mental health issues of their children. There was a strong sense of ‘forewarned is forearmed’. Some key themes that came out of this discussion were:

• How to help your child manage anxious feelings
• How to help your child with perfectionism
• How to connect with and listen to your teenager. Click here for an excellent article by Chris Ivey about Active Listening 
• How to manage your child’s meltdowns
• Understanding child & adolescent development
• Support to help manage the peaks and valleys of parenting across the developmental stages of their children
• Support resources for parents
• How to reduce the stigma of mental health

Please know that Chris Ivey, Sue Sagar and myself have taken on board these discussion points and will look closely at how we can ‘do things well’ in the future to address the needs of our much valued parent community. Thank you again to those parents who I was able to meet in Week 3. I very much look forward to our next Sync with the Psych session.

Dr Jasmine Green

COLLEGE PSYCHOLOGIST