I’m a second-level teacher but want to be a guidance counsellor. Is this possible?

I have been teaching Irish and German for eight years and am considering applying for a master’s in guidance counselling this year. I find helping students clarify their life and career goals inspiring. I worry, however, about the volume of students with emotional and behavioural issues.

Answer

The guidance counsellor’s remit is the personal, educational and vocational development of each student. You cannot subdivide a human being into separate parts. One’s career or vocational aspirations are profoundly influenced and shaped by personal life experiences at home, in social interactions and in school.

Therefore, when guiding a student’s life journey, you have to engage with the full person and every dimension of their lived experience. It was my experience as a guidance counsellor for more than 20 years that the level of psychological and emotional stresses presented by teenagers was increasing constantly.

Vast amounts of research has been conducted globally as to the factors leading to this phenomenon Many have identified the role of social media and children’s 24/7 engagement with it, long before they have the emotional maturity to deal with such content, as being the root cause for the growing levels of child referrals, through the observations of classroom teachers and their year-head colleagues to the care structures of schools and on to the guidance counsellor’s office.

You might well ask how does this growing personal counselling volume of work shape the nature of the service that you as a prospective future guidance counsellor might provide for the entire student population in your care?

There are a number of excellent websites that guidance counsellors inform students of daily in their work, whose focus is on supporting learners of all ages in discerning the way forward in their educational and vocational journeys.

These websites provide comprehensive data regarding the educational and vocational progression opportunities at home and abroad, which students require, eg qualifax.ie, careersportal.ie, apprenticeship.ie, eunicas.ie and myfuturechoice.com, among others.

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When dealing with the personal challenges facing a growing proportion of students today, guidance counselling postgraduate training programmes provide comprehensive counselling skills development modules. The Department of Education also supports the counselling aspect of guidance counsellors’ work through six two-hour counselling supervision sessions annually.

Where a guidance counsellor has concerns about a student’s immediate health and safety of the child , they have, through the appropriate referral structures of their school, access to the support services of Tusla, the family support agency.

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Do you have a career or education query? Email askbrian@irishtimes.com