HomeMy WebLinkAbout'There is a crisis:' Halifax advocate says more school guidance counsellors needed - Metro Halifax - 06/21/2017 - Metro Halifax - 06/21/20176/2222017 'There is a crisis:' Halifax advocate says more school guidance counsellors needed
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Trevor Brumwell says the ratio of counsellors is outdated, and boards should have more
freedom to assign them where they see fit.
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By: IlHaley Ryan Metro, Published on Wed Jun 21 2017
A retired guidance counsellor is calling on the province to fund more positions and move away
from the "outdated" 1 counsellor to 500 students formula, saying increased supports for young
people are badly needed.
Trevor Brumwell, who worked as a counsellor for more than 30 years at multiple HRM schools
including Citadel High before he retired in 2012, said he's been increasingly concerned that the
education department's ratio of 1 counsellor to 500 students keeps staff overburdened, and
kids slip through the cracks when at the least what's needed is a 1 to 400 ratio.
"What's happening now in terms of relationship violence, and cyberbullying, and social media
challenges, and sexuality and sexual orientation and all of that stuff, I mean there is a crisis,"
Brumwell said Wednesday.
Although the education department has mental health workers come into some schools one
afternoon a week, Brumwell said parachuting someone in for a limited time doesn't help
students with ongoing support, academic expertise, and all the detailed work that counsellors
do.
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6/2222017 'There is a crisis:' Halifax advocate says more school guidance counsellors needed
"The people who are on the front line every day, working with those students and those
families, are the guidance counsellors," Brumwell said.
Brumwell said he was alarmed to hear that Citadel High was given 2.5 full time equivalent
(FTE) counsellors next year in a diverse school of roughly 1,300, and has learned the school
will handle it by having two counsellors work full time in the fall and the third teach instead -
leaving the two with more than 600 files each.
If he was facing that scenario in the fall, Brumwell said he knows he would've been so
overwhelmed he wouldn't have time to follow up on a kid with severe anxiety, or anorexia, to
get referrals, and handle all the emails and phone calls.
"It would be an impossible task," Brumwell said. "Something would get missed."
The spring semester would then see all three counselling full time, Brumwell said.
Although the Halifax Regional School Board has increased the number of guidance counsellors
by seven across the system this coming year to 96.6 FTEs, spokesman Doug Hadley said the
move from three to 2.5 counsellors at Citadel was necessary to balance staff resources and
move towards an "equitable level of support" for all schools.
Hadley said the 1 to 500 ratio is a guideline from the education department.
Brumwell said since the ratio is a provincial guideline, it's up to the department to increase the
funding and bring counselling levels up to not be "negligent."
"We can't afford to allow this to happen, not once we know it ... Somebody has to be
accountable," he said.
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