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Student Support - Information for parents and carers |
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What is the Student Support Service? |
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The NCBIS Student Support service aims to
support the emotional health of a pupil. The department
consists of both pastoral and health staff including the
doctor, IEN/EAL Department, Form Tutors, Heads of Key
Stage and Director of Students. Supporting the emotional
health of a pupil underpins academic achievement and
facilitates the building and management of successful
relationships in the school environment. At the heart of
this service is the opportunity for a student to engage
in individual sessions with the Student Support Officer.
These sessions can be referred to as counselling
sessions or individual work. |
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What is Individual Work? |
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The opportunity to talk in confidence
about things that are concerning us with a qualified
practitioner. What is spoken about will depend on the
individual, but common themes are stress, relationships
change loss and distressing, traumatic events. |
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What does the Student Support Officer do? |
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The Student Support Officer is trained to
listen without judging and to help young people sort out
their thoughts and feelings about whatever is concerning
them. |
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Why have a Student Support Officer at
NCBIS? |
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Few of us are able to work well when we
are stressed or unhappy. |
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The impact of distressing or difficult
situations can be felt even more acutely by young people
than by adults. Our experience is that young people find
individual work or counselling useful in the same way as
adults. They may be facing a number of issues, with
fractured family structures, bullying and peer
difficulties occurring most frequently. It is the belief
of NCBIS that if young people are able receive emotional
support from a qualified professional they will have
greater opportunity to fulfil their potential. |
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How long will individual sessions last? |
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Individual work may be for a few sessions
or longer term. Sometimes the student may only need to
see the Student Support Officer once. Contact is
reviewed regularly between the Student Support Officer
and the student. |
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Where and when does it take place? |
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Sessions take place in the base of the
Student Support Officer, located next to the uniform
shop. This is a small private room away from the rest of
the school. Sessions normally last about 40 minutes and
appointment times in the school can be varied to ensure
that time is not lost from any one subject.
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Is it confidential? |
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A key feature of the NCBIS Student
Support Service is that information is treated
confidentially. Counselling or individual work is a time
when it is OK to talk about concerns without fear of
them being discussed elsewhere. This includes not
discussing the work with parents, teachers or any other
adults unless the young person requests or gives consent
for this. This can be hard for parents to accept at
times but ensuring the confidentiality of work is
crucial for establishing trust so that young people feel
confident to speak openly and freely about what is
concerning them.
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However, if a young person appears to be
at risk of significant harm it may be appropriate to
seek help of other agencies to help keep them safe. The
Student Support Officer would discuss this first with
the young person. |
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What if I don’t want my child to receive
counselling or individual work? |
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If a young person requests to work with
the Student Support Officer and is able to understand
what is involved in the process, then they have the
right to access the services. Parents and carers may not
deny them this right. The Student Support Officer would
however prefer that to have your support for the work
and is always happy to talk to you about any concerns
that you may have about the idea of counselling or
individual work. |
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What if the student refuses to work with
the Student Support Officer? |
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A decision about whether or not to take
up the services of the Student Support Service is
voluntary for the young people at NCBIS. However, when
a young person is considered at risk or involved in
criminal activities NCBIS require the young person to be
seen by the Student Support Officer on a minimum of one
occasion.
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Can I support the work of the Student
Support Officer? |
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Yes, and we at NCBIS welcome this.
Experience shows that the most helpful thing a parent
can do is to show an acceptance of individual work or
counselling as a normal, useful activity and to show an
interest if their son or daughter wishes to talk about
it, while not pressing them if they don’t. We
acknowledge that this isn’t an easy task and it is quite
natural for parents to feel anxious about what is being
said in the sessions. |
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is always the hope of NCBIS that talking to the Student
Support Officer will lead to greater understanding
between child and parent. However you may need to allow
a little time for this to happen. |
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How is the Student Support Service
accessed? |
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Your child may request to work with the
Student Support Officer directly or requests may be
facilitated through the class teacher in the Primary
School or Form Tutor or Head of Key Stage in Secondary.
Alternatively parents may support a child in his/her
request to work with the Student Support Officer. |
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►
Click here to DOWNLOAD and electronic copy. |
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Student Support
–Information for students |
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What is it all about? |
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Sometimes we all have problems that are
worrying. Think of a confusing jigsaw when all the
pieces are difficult to fit together. The Student
Support Officer is there to help you talk about these
worries. Talking about a problem with the Student
Support Officer is like sorting all the pieces of the
jigsaw so we can build a picture that makes more sense
to us. Sometimes it is difficult to talk to parents,
teachers or friends about things that are making us
anxious. The Student Support Officer is someone you can
talk to in a different way, someone who will listen to
you very carefully, who will not judge you or tell you
what to do. We call these sessions with the Student
Support Officer individual work or counselling.
Individual work is about helping you to work things out
for yourself, make decisions and choices and helping you
look at things differently. It can help you feel better
about yourself.
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What kind of things do people talk to the
Student Support Officer about? |
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Students can talk about whatever matters
to them or whatever is worrying them. It could be a lot
of different things. Here are some examples of problems
and thoughts, questions and feelings that you may have: |
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Parents separating |
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Is it my fault? Their breaking up is
breaking me up too. |
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Chaos at home |
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I want to go out with my mates and make
my own decisions. I’m arguing with my parents all the
time. They never listen to me, why should I listen to
them. |
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Making friends/keeping friends/all my
friends are leaving |
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Everyone else seems to have loads of
friends. I haven’t. What is wrong with me? |
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I’m feeling angry but I don’t know why? |
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I’m worried because I keep feeling that I
want to lash out at people. I can’t control myself. I’m
always in trouble at home and in school because of it. |
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Bullies are around |
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I don’t want to come to school. Bullies
bug me every day and it is getting worse. |
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Death/loss of someone special |
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I miss this person so much. I’ll never
get through this. It will be like this forever. No-one
understands how bad I’m feeling. |
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Feelings about myself
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Sometimes I don’t understand how I feel
or why I feel like I do. |
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Remember even though your problem may be
completely different to the ones above, the Student
Support Officer is there to listen to whatever is
WORRYING you.
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