Primary schools in need of counsellor supports
Family issues, including breakdown of parental relationships, were the most common areas around which children require support in primary schools, according to a survey by Dublin City University’s school of nursing and human sciences. However, only a third have access to school-based counselling.
More than 80% of principals mentioned those issues as among those their pupils present with, but around three quarters also had children trying to deal with anxiety, anger and behavioural issues.
Among the more isolated “critical incidents” with which they had to deal with over the previous year were children self-harming or having suicidal thoughts.
One principal reported that a senior infant pupil had brought knives or a fork to school to hurt another child. Another referred to a pupil lighting fires in school.
Some schools had homeless families seeking help. In one case two families had turned up with all their belongings.
Lead researcher Rosaleen McElvaney said school is where children spend their days, meaning it is not just a family that is affected when tragedy occurs.
“Teachers are faced with the ongoing challenge of supporting the children concerned and addressing the ripple effects throughout the school community,” said McElvaney. “Often, teachers feel ill-equipped for this mammoth task. Access to support, not just for children, but for the teachers themselves is vital.”
The National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) is available to schools in the immediate aftermath of critical incidents. Some of the issues which principals said their school had to assist students around were the murder of a pupil, violent killing of a parent, suicides of family members, and the death of a child with cancer.
However, of more than 734 primary principals to respond to the DCU survey so far, nearly two thirds did not have access to school-based counselling. Similar numbers were interested in availing of individual counselling and psychotherapy for their pupils, or consultation for staff.
With recent schools guidelines on positive mental health and suicide prevention focused on second level, Ms McElvaney pointed to the need for early prevention, detection and intervention for young people to protect against risks associated with mental illness in adolescence.
Her study aims to gauge prospective demand for counselling services in primary schools, but she pointed to the high numbers using a Barnardo’s school-based counselling service in the North and positive outcomes of similar initiatives in the UK.
NEPS staff should have more time for in-school supports when a new system to allocating resource teachers frees them up from assessing children with special educational needs.
