SCOTLAND

Parents slam school counselling scheme

A groundbreaking scheme which sees children as young as four given counselling sessions was criticised by parenting groups yesterday. The project, which takes place in ten Edinburgh primary schools, allows the youngsters to discuss problems caused by parental divorce, deprivation, abandonment and bullying. It is run by the charity Place2Be, and the Scottish Executive has spent £150,000 on it since it was piloted in two schools three years ago. Teachers and politicians have hailed it as a breakthrough in helping children to cope with traumatic events in their lives.

But last night, Eleanor Coner, of the Scottish Parent Teacher Council (SPTC), said the pupils were too young to be given counselling sessions. She said: “The danger is that we are starting to put more labels on things in society. We now hear little children saying: ‘Oh, I’m stressed’. Stress has never been part of the vocabulary of a six-year-old. We’re almost putting these ideas into the children’s minds. “Children have to learn to cope and they have to learn coping strategies. I wouldn’t want children becoming reliant on this at all.”
Norman Wells, the spokesman for Family and Youth Concern, warned that the scheme undermined family values. He said: “It is the parents who are the primary carers of children and it is them who should address the concerns that their children have, not a third party which does not have that lifelong commitment to a child. “They only have a professional involvement, not a personal one,” Mr Wells said. “Once you refer a child to therapy, a problem assumes a much greater importance. It then becomes a problem with a capital ‘P’ and can be totally blown out of proportion.”

Under the programme, children are encouraged to write down their problems on a piece of paper and post it in a small letterbox within the school. Parents attend the first counselling session with their child to ensure that they are involved in the process. In subsequent sessions, counsellors take children into a dedicated room in the school and combine art and play therapy to talk through their concerns. The scheme was initially piloted at Murrayburn and Balgreen primary schools in Edinburgh before a further eight schools joined last year. Euan Robson, the deputy education minister, and Rhona Brankin, the deputy health minister, will visit one of the schools, Forthview Primary, on Monday. Genevieve Smyth, the manager of Place2Be Edinburgh, said she is keen to have the scheme extended throughout schools in Scotland. She added: “If we can nurture a culture of emotional literacy and a culture where it is cool to talk about how we feel, we are going to have fewer problems later on.”

Ms Brankin said: “One of the main priority areas of our mental health work is to improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people. “This work complements our own aims of having higher academic achievement, but also supporting young people who are confident and emotionally well-rounded and happy.”

Kevin Schofield
6 November 2004

http://news.scotsman.com/education.cfm?id=1282562004
 

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