Dealing with sudden death, information for young people
Additional resources for bereavement support
Helping teenagers cope with death
Ballinteer Community School Guidance Counsellor:
Oliver Joyce, Guidance Counsellor
Email: oliver.joyce@ballinteercs.ie
The Guidance & Counselling Service
The aim of the guidance and counselling programme is to ensure that our students have access to appropriate guidance to assist them in their academic, personal and social development and supporting them in making educational and career choices in accordance with the Education Act (1998).
Guidance
The guidance process aims to help students to develop an awareness and acceptance of their talents and abilities by allowing them to explore possibilities and opportunities. We aim to support them to grow in independence and to take responsibility for themselves allowing them to make informed choices about their lives.
Some guidance activities include:
- Supporting parents and students throughout the journey from 1st to 6th year in making choices and dealing with change e.g. transition from primary to secondary school, subject choice and career decisions.
- Organising guest speakers from Higher Educational Institution, Post Leaving Cert Colleges, Career Ambassadors and Apprenticeship opportunities.
- Organised visits to Higher Educational Institutions such as NUI Maynooth, Trinity College Dublin, IT Tallaght, UCD and DCU
- Personal career interviews for students covering CAO, PLC, Apprenticeships, HEAR/DARE and SUSI application
- Careers classes in Transition Year involving online career investigation and becoming familiar with online websites for career and college investigation
- Organising personal awareness talks such as AWARE with their Beat the Blues Programme and Junior Achievement Ireland with their Inspiring Young Minds programme.
- Links with the local community such as CRH, Salesforce and SMART FUTURES in order to investigate real life career paths.
Counselling
Counselling is a key part of the schools guidance programme. This is offered on an individual or group basis as part of a developmental learning process as well as at times of personal crisis. Counselling has as its objective the empowerment of students so that they can make decisions, solve problems, address behavioural issues, develop coping strategies and resolve difficulties that they may be experiencing. We hope to help develop life-long resiliency.
A professional relationship involving confidentiality is at the core of the schools counselling service. The guidance counsellor does not act in a disciplinary capacity and this frees her to deal with students at a more personal level.
Common issues include:
- Self-esteem building
- Anger management control
- Family bereavement or illness
- Friendship issues
The guidance counsellor often refers students, with the consent of parents, to outside agencies for more intensive and focused therapy. Issues such as depression, suicide ideation, self-harm and eating disorders all need outside professional intervention. The guidance counsellor offers counselling support to the student before and after the referral but not while the outside intervention is taking place.
How can a student access Counselling
Most counselling appointments are made by the students themselves but sometimes they are referred by a parent or teacher.
There are a number of ways that a student can seek counselling:
- The student can request counselling in person by calling into the guidance counsellor’s office.
- A parent or guardian may contact the guidance counsellor to make an appointment for the student.
- The student can leave a note under the door of the guidance counsellor’s office stating name and class where by the guidance counsellor will set up an appointment.
- The student may speak in confidence to her tutor/subject teacher or Year Head about a problem. If it is considered that counselling would be of benefit the tutor/teacher/Year Head could:
- Come directly to the counsellor to arrange an appointment for the student concerned
- And/or encourage the student to make an appointment in person
Numbers When You Need Them