Looking in from the outside: community counsellors’ opinions and attitudes to school counselling in Singapore
Journal Publication ResearchOnline@JCUAbstract
Over the last decade, the movement towards the permanent presence of counsellors within schools has gathered pace in Singapore. As counsellors were introduced into more schools, there were opportunities for their community-based counterparts such as social workers, youth workers and other counselling practitioners to work with them. Through semi-structured interviews, this study explored the experiences and perceptions of counselling practitioners in community-based agencies, specifically Family Service Centres, on school counselling. Community counsellors were found to be supportive of the initiative but concerned about how the service was implemented, especially in relation to professional and ethical standards and maintenance of confidentiality standards. Community counsellors felt that their counterparts in schools lacked knowledge about community resources and that family work seemed beyond their capability, they also thought that former teachers or principals perhaps needed more help with the transition to a counselling role. These findings are discussed and it is recommended that community counsellors could be more involved in developing the new school counselling services.
Journal
Pastoral Care in Education
Publication Name
N/A
Volume
32
ISBN/ISSN
1468-0122
Edition
N/A
Issue
4
Pages Count
12
Location
N/A
Publisher
Routledge
Publisher Url
N/A
Publisher Location
N/A
Publish Date
N/A
Url
N/A
Date
N/A
EISSN
N/A
DOI
10.1080/02643944.2014.974663