As a social worker who works with youth, and has for the past 22 years, I spend most of my time with who I call “tweeners.”Â
These are the youth who are in-between. School is not working for them. They are often on the verge of dropping out, but they don’t yet possess (or haven’t been given) the skills to find and hold down a job. They’re often facing challenges at home such as violence and addiction and/or grappling with mental illness. With so much of their life unfolding on social media, they have less face-to-face interaction with people, are more socially awkward, are getting less physical activity and as a result are dealing with increased anxiety and other mental health issues.
Sometimes they get involved in crime and are navigating the criminal justice system. The struggles they’re facing outside of school cause them to struggle in school, if they go at all. They need to address these problems before they even think about going to biology or calculus. Â
Schools must be a place where youth have their needs met—not just their educational needs, but their emotional and mental health needs too. To that end, I have a brave suggestion for the gurus of education in Nova Scotia: I believe that the guidance counsellor is an outdated position and that junior high and high schools should employ youth workers instead.
Generally, the students who walk through the guidance counsellor’s doors are those who need the least guidance, who have the momentum and are already “going places” (usually these places are a post-secondary education). These students (most of whom have the motivation, the grades and the means) would likely still be “going places” without access to a guidance counsellor.
Guidance counsellors are former teachers, and understandably, their background is in and their priorities are education (classroom education). Youth workers are trained to assess the immediate needs of students in terms of health, mental health, learning capability and potential.
We look at people’s abilities, their interests and make connections: a young man tells me the only thing he’s good at is helping his friends, and together we decide that nursing (a career path he had never considered) might be his path. We make referrals to health-care providers, counsellors and introduce them to people who can serve as mentors and role-models. A youth worker is there every step of the way, even when you trip up. Right now, the desperate need for youth workers is being met by after-school and outside-of-school programs, by non-profit organizations with limited resources. Â
And the pièce de résistance: I recommend that we should also have actual counsellors in the schools, trained psychotherapists and/or psychologists available, free of charge, to our youth. Wait times are so long that by the time they get a referral to a mental health professional, the youth I work with often don’t even want to talk to someone anymore. Having these professionals right there in our schools would lessen wait times for youth, but also decrease the strain on Nova Scotia’s health and mental health system.
Let’s be the first province to do this. Let’s be the example for Ontario, for Manitoba, instead of it being the other way around. Let’s actually put students, Nova Scotian youth, first.
Dennis Adams is director of operations and programs at Leave out ViolencE (LOVE). He’s worked in educating Nova Scotian youth for the past 14 years
This article appears in Oct 9-15, 2014.
Let’s just open up an Adderall dispensary at the schools. Buncha bullshit. School is for learning. Hospitals are for healthcare. Keep the two separate. Mental illnesses should be diagnosed by doctors not guidance counselors or teachers.
Guidance counselors need to be certified in order to ensure they have the proper training and education to deal with the actual problems presented by students. As it stands, former teachers and staff are not automatically capable of fulfilling this role just because they’ve worked in the school before. Removing the position is not necessarily the answer, but a good first step is to ensure that the counselor has more of the skills/education/training employed by youth workers today.
Basically, what you’re saying is, “Guidance Counselors are not effective Guidance Counselors because they’re not Guidance Counselors (they’re just pretending)”
Besides, if we’re going to talk school reform we’ve more serious problems to deal with – Mostly, the outdated and ineffective education models practiced for the last 100 + years, and the lack of a comprehensive and free online classroom that anyone of any age can access and receive the education (certifiable) offered by our P-12 schools. Also, the subjects themselves need to be overhauled; from ancient history, to physics, to chemistry, and even personal health and development.
Most of the problems listed in the above article could be mitigated if children and youth were educated more inline with their individual development, capabilities, and motivations – and if there was more focus in schools put on personal development and growth, and art and philosophy and expression, instead of strict, measured academic achievement. Save the forced achievements and self measuring for adolescents and adults.
The Captain’s heard people confess that their learning only truly started after they left school. In fact, everyday simple truths and facts are encountered that are indisposable after their discovery, but always leave one wondering, “What would my younger self have done with this knowledge”, and “Why am I only learning this now?”
Cheers,
The Captain
Mr. Adams makes some interesting points about the social, emotional and educational needs of today’s youth. I would agree that many young people today face a multitude of challenges, which may include mental health and involvement in the criminal justice system amongst many others. In Nova Scotia schools today many supporting staff and programs are available and offer a wide variety of help. There are African support workers, school social workers, school psychologists, mental health clinicians, youth health centres, youth advocate workers, Bridges to Learning, Schools Plus and others… I strongly believe that we need to support youth in a variety of ways today to help them cope with the wide gamut of needs.
As Mr. Adams mentions in his article, many students who are facing challenges may be poor attenders for various reasons, such as mental illness, incarceration etc.. Therefor the services we offer need to go beyond the walls of the school and some supports that I have mentioned above do that, such as Bridges to Learning and community outreach workers.
What would be helpful to students who face the most challenges would be promoting better communication, understanding, sharing and sense of team work between these various supporting parties. All of these people and programs have valuable services to offer inside and outside the schools, but if they are working in isolation from each other their services may be overlapping or counter-productive to each one another.
One prime example of this lack of understanding would be Mr. Adams’ lack of understanding of the educational background and role of guidance counsellors. The guidance counsellors who work with students in todays schools possess a Masters level degree in counselling and are therefore fully qualified professional counsellors, familiar with all theories of counselling and psychotherapy. Many guidance counsellors in Nova Scotia schools today are certified with the Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association of Canada. Some are also registered with the Nova Scotia College of Counselling Therapists. Furthermore, they engage in continuous professional development opportunities and upgrading. So Nova Scotian schools already do have “real” counsellors. There are also actual psychologists who work in schools to help support students’ needs. These services are free to students. What would be great is if we had more supports like this for youth. In fact I have to completely disagree with Mr. Adams’ point that “Guidance Counsellor is an outdated job”. I think that guidance counsellors are more needed today than ever. They provide invaluable services to students. They take the time to build rapport with students, engage with students on may levels; counselling individually, in small groups, by running valuable programs, as chaperones on field trips, as coaches, etc…..Every school should have a fill time guidance counsellor. Many guidance counsellors’ assignments currently involve classroom teaching and not every school has a guidance counsellor.
As a guidance counsellor myself who has worked in HRSB schools for over 23 years, from grade primary to Grade 12 and in rural, suburban and urban communities, I can attest to the fact that some students who would not have succeeded on their own have sought out help from me. I have helped students who needed urgent and immediate interventions, I have helped students and their families make contact and referrals for vital mental health support. Additionally, as I member of the school planning team, sometimes students are referred to me from other teachers or administration and I make a point of meeting them, whether they actively seek my help or not.
The fact remains, there are more needs out there that we can properly address. There are long wait lists for mental health services. We all have a role to play in helping today’s youth. We need to work more collaboratively, support and understand each other as professionals so that we can provide the best support possible to young people.