Ms Doreen McMorris:

I will speak about the important role guidance counsellors play but I wish to return to the point made about the specialist qualifications of guidance counsellors. It is true they are qualified to provide counselling support for students. It is important to distinguish between that type of support and the type of qualification a professional counsellor would have. The guidance counsellors in our schools undertake a postgraduate qualification. They are first and foremost teachers. They undertake a postgraduate qualification to enable them to provide a guidance counselling service in our schools. That involves counselling support but it also equips them to fulfil a much wider remit, which very much includes planning for guidance. The guidance plan in a school, which should be part of the whole-school plan, is critically important. It should lay out all the different forms of support for students and those supports are delivered by different people in different ways. The one-to-one support provided by guidance counsellors is well recognised as being very important. The Department's circular, which was issued at the time of the removal of the ex quota allocation, clearly states that schools should prioritise guidance counsellors' time for the one-to-one counselling that is necessary. There is no doubt about that, but it is important to realise that many other members of the school community are well positioned to support students in different ways.

As Mr. Hubert Loftus has outlined, schools now have the autonomy to decide how best to use their resources. It might be of interest to the members to note that in 2006 and 2007 the inspectorate undertook inspections in 55 post-primary schools across the different sectors. It is of significance that at that time just under a third of schools were found not to be using their ex quota allocation for guidance. It appears at that time when schools had an ex quota allocation that allocation was not always given to the guidance area. That is an important point to remember. Schools principals and boards now have full autonomy to decide what portion of the overall resourcing should go into this area.

It appears from research that students feel comfortable approaching a range of different people for support - it is not always the guidance counsellor. Some ESRI research conducted in 2006 shows that also. There is general recognition that schools have an important role in terms of prevention and identifying students with needs but it is not as clear who should be providing such support. It is important to remember that in terms of our young people. Responsibility in this respect must be spread across the area and young people have a wide variety of needs.