2025 LHC Junior School Parent Information Handbook - Flipbook - Page 11
Counselling Service - Junior School
The College provides counselling services for its students
through Counsellors employed by the college. The LHC
Counselling Service works with students, families,
wellbeing staff and external service providers to assist
students to optimise their functioning and wellbeing as
they move through the school. This work can include
short-term face-to-face appointments, participating in
parent-student and LHC wellbeing staff meetings, liaising
with parents/carers and external agency providers to
ensure recommendations for care are implemented within
the school environment and recommending families seek
external support when a student’s needs would be better
met with a specialist or broader care team.
The College Counsellors are quali昀椀ed and experienced
professionals with quali昀椀cations in Clinical Psychology or
Psychology and are registered with the Australian Health
Practitioners Regulation Agency (AHPRA).
Support provided
Counselling support at school is offered as a shortterm intervention and focuses on challenges affecting a
student’s learning and engagement at school. This may
include:
• Developing and enhancing emotional regulation and
coping skills.
• Social skills training and con昀氀ict resolution skills.
• Organisational support in the form of time management
and study skills.
Session format
Counselling is typically provided on a fortnightly basis to
a student and runs for the length of a lesson. Sessions
are run during the term and within school hours. Sessions
with a College Counsellor may have to be rescheduled
to a different day last minute due to the nature of urgent
issues that occur in a school environment.
Arranging Appointments:
An appointment with a College Counsellor can be made
via referral from the Head of Junior School.
Once the referral is received, a member of the College
Counselling team will contact the student’s family to
obtain consent, unless the College determines otherwise,
for their child to access the Counselling service.
Exchange of information
It is important that the College Counsellor communicates
regularly with relevant College staff about matters
crucial to the management of student and whole school
community wellbeing, and that they attend appropriate
staff meetings. College Counsellors will always use their
discretion in these circumstances, and their obligation to
share important information does not include providing
access to con昀椀dential 昀椀les. Sharing of limited necessary
information with other College staff is for the purpose of
protecting and promoting the wellbeing of the student
community and coordinating better learning outcomes for
your child.
Consent will be requested before the College Counsellor
liaises with any external health practitioners involved in
your child’s care.
• Identifying and providing short-term support for mental
illness and emotional challenges, such as anxiety, stress,
depression, grief, and loss.
• Crisis support for distressed students.
• Assessing and supporting at risk-students.
• Referral to external support providers for clinical or
chronic mental health concerns.
• Parent resources and support for managing student
issues.
As the support provided is short-term in nature, College
Counsellors work in a triage and support-linking role
rather than offering long-term, ongoing therapy. For this
reason, external support is recommended when a student
requires regular, consistent, or specialised psychology
and counselling to ensure their needs are best met. To
most appropriately use the resources available within the
College Counselling team, and to allow the student to best
utilise their external support, once a student is engaged
with external support, their face-to-face appointments
with the College Counselling team may cease.
2025 PARENT INFORMATION HANDBOOK
11
