Behaviour and Discipline in Schools

Memorandum submitted by British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) would like to submit the following response to the Education Committee’s Inquiry into Discipline and Behaviour in Schools.

1. The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) is the leading body for counselling and psychotherapy in the UK with 34,000 members, who work across the public, private and voluntary sectors.

BACP has a strong public commitment to high practice standards and public protection. All BACP members are bound by the Ethical Framework for Good Practice for Counselling and Psychotherapy and within this, the Professional Conduct Procedure. These set out the basis of good practice for BACP therapists and their clients.

BACP has worked with the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) to develop a toolkit to support the development of school counselling services in Wales, as part of this project we also worked with a Welsh secondary school to develop the Masks and Mirrors short film and recently a follow up production.

The Welsh Assembly Government were awarded the BACP Innovation in Counselling and Psychotherapy award 2009 for their National School-based Counselling Strategy.

BACP has recently been awarded a contract to provide research into WAG’s schools based counselling strategy which will look into the impact on young people’s mental health, satisfaction rates (clients and schools), perceptions, where added value could be employed, relationships between counselling services and wider support groups and cost effectiveness. The research will also include an evaluation of the primary school pilots. This research begins in September 2010 to be completed in August 2011.

2. Summary

Evidence shows that counselling in schools can significantly improve young people’s challenging behaviour, support them with their emotional difficulties and help them manage their anger.

3. Background information on schools counselling

Nearly ten per cent of 5-16 year olds have a mental disorder and in a recent study of school counselling across the UK, which has assessed the experiences of more than 10,000 clients, school counselling can be associated with significant positive change in mental well being for young people.

School-based counselling can help young people deal with a range of problems including challenging behaviour as well as bereavement, eating disorders, bullying and relationships amongst other things.  School-based counselling services that have been implemented successfully in Wales have helped thousands of children and young people become more confident in school and early results indicate improved attendance.

Only England doesn’t have a policy commitment to school based counselling. The Governments of Wales and Northern Ireland have in place national strategies for school counselling and their implementation, and provide ring fenced funding for the provision of these services in every secondary school in their countries, whilst Scotland has a commitment to provide access to school services by 2015.

4. School counselling and dealing with discipline and behaviour in schools.

§ Many young people in secondary school seek support from, and are referred to school counselling because of behaviour difficulties, and particularly managing their anger

§ These requests for counselling support are always at the wish of the young people concerned – they are not ‘sent’ to counselling, rather they go wishing to change the way they are behaving

§ Counselling is associated with significantly high levels of improvement in these young people, and is associated with a significant reduction in their emotional difficulties (which is usually the cause of their behavioural difficulties)

§ Young people consistently give high ratings of levels of satisfaction and helpfulness of school counselling as an effective intervention

§ Teachers too, consistently give high ratings to the usefulness of having professional counsellors in school

§ There is a trend for reduced absence following a period of school counselling - however more research is needed in this area

5. Recommendations

§ All children and young people should have access to professional, qualified counselling services in their school.

§ Children and young people should be able to request services for themselves as well as others requesting the services on their behalf.

§ For children and young people who prefer not to access services in school, and for those who are not in school, there should be alternative provision within community settings. Services need to be designed to ensure that they are responsive to the needs of the populations that they serve

September 2010