What should we do when children confide in staff in a small, rural community school?
Q: I work in a very small school, set in a tight-knit rural community. I increasingly find children confiding in me with regard to family problems as well as relationship issues with their peers, which are often translated as "bullying" at home. I also find that outside school parents are likely to "confront" me about perceived bullying. Frankly, I feel ill-equipped to cope with such approaches and I am often worried that I will "get into trouble" if I say the wrong thing so I'm sure I often come across as evasive. I feel that it is very important that children feel able to approach the staff that they feel most comfortable talking to, whatever their official job role in school. Do you have any advice on how this can be addressed so that Support Staff are confident in dealing with these issues - is there any training/literature available perhaps?
Jenny: A long time ago the comprehensively brilliant Elton Report, 1989, recommended that all teachers should have training in counselling skills. I would have gone a little further and said that all school staff should have the same training. It’s a great programme of learning which each human being needs access to. A basic counselling skills course teaches you not to be a pseudo analyst but to be a calm reflective befriender. You sound as if you have a natural empathy (Rogerian counselling states that to help other people you need to have empathy, warmth, unconditional acceptance and genuiness - for some people these are natural gifts). What you need to be reassured about is that the school has a policy on listening to children. If you are trained in 'reflecting' - you cannot say the wrong thing as you are restating what you have heard the child say. However, staff need to get together and all decide that they support the notion that children can have a listening ear from each of them. Some children just need attention - if they are not getting a listening system of weekly circle times - they will sometimes invent problems to take to adults just to be heard. Some children need a gentle one to one chat.
What all the staff need to be clear about is at what point do they have to refer the child on for formal counselling. I trained my support and teaching staff to always say "don’t forget, if ever you tell me anything that worries me I may have to take it further". In this way children learn that you will not keep intimate secrets, so if they do tell you anything major that you will refer them onto other people. But there are many stages of counselling. The word counselling means good communication. It would probably be helpful to have some training from an organisation such as Kidscape to overhaul your policy.. Well done for caring - there are so many good people out there who are quietly supporting children. As a counsellor, I once worked with a very troubled child and I remember saying to her "how on earth have you managed to keep going", and she said "if Mrs….. hadn't spent a little time with me each lunchtime, making me feel special I don’t know how I would have coped". There are unsung heroes across the country.
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