Supervision provides benefits for school counsellors and career counsellors such as support, an opportunity to gain new ideas and strategies, and personal and professional development. Despite this, studies have also shown that school counsellors perceive that the amount of time they participate in supervision is inadequate. In career counselling, there is little evidence that supervision has even been established as a mainstream professional practice. The reasons for this curious situation, whereby little time is spent on a potentially beneficial activity, are uncertain. The present study investigated the supervisory experiences of a group of school counsellors and career counsellors for a six month period following their completion of an intensive supervision training program. Participants recorded their supervisory experiences in a structured diary. Even though the participants were well informed about supervision, the findings of the present study are consistent with those of previous studies. This history of repeatedly similar findings suggests that it may be timely to ask some fundamental questions about supervision in these two professions. Such questions in turn suggest possible new research directions.

This article reports on part of a commissioned research study into students with severe challenging behaviour in primary schools serviced by the Catholic Education Office (Parramatta Diocese) in western Sydney. The focus of the study was on the prevalence of severe challenging behaviour and the nature of presenting behaviour. Questionnaires were directed to school staff and information was obtained from 41 of the 53 primary schools in the diocese. Using very conservative criteria, the estimate of numbers of students with severe challenging behaviour was approximately 1 per school. Students were typically male and were academically below average. The most frequently reported challenging behaviour (e.g., calling out, out of seat) was inherently minor in nature for the most part, but at high frequency this could be extremely disruptive to the operation of a classroom. More serious behaviours, such as physical aggression to other school students and staff, were also reported at concerning frequency, noting that such behaviours place staff and other students at risk. The present study adds to the limited Australian data describing students in regular schools with challenging behaviour by providing specific information on the classroom frequency of such behaviour and the academic performance of students.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of training on learning disabilities (LD) on school counsellor candidates’ perceptions related to students with LD. The study group was comprised of 51 students in the Counselling and Psychological Guidance Department. The participants responded to an open-ended question: ‘Students with learning disabilities are like … Because …’. A content analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. Based on the study results, it was determined that before being trained on LD, the majority of the participants considered students with LD as problematic or never progressing. Following the training, a majority of the participants started using metaphors indicating that students with LD may progress and learn.

Bullying in schools continues to be a problem despite the best efforts of educators, researchers, and clinicians. Of most concern for the present study is that some children experience long-term victimisation by their peers. To improve our understanding in this area, the phenomenology of being bullied over the course of the school year was investigated with three participants aged from 11 to 15 years. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Two superordinate themes with associated subthemes were identified: ‘experience of victimisation’ (‘being different’, ‘dynamics of bullying’, ‘school’, and ‘social network’) and ‘strategies’ (‘help-seeking’, ‘behaviour’, ‘response to bullying’, ‘personal coping’, and ‘solutions’). Through these interviews some of the factors that may contribute to long-term peer victimisation were identified. The implications of these results for prevention and intervention are discussed.

The objective of this article is to describe the practical aspects involved in adapting cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) to an adolescent population in Australia. Some effective ways to use CBT with adolescents include preparing them for CBT by providing a thorough cognitive–behavioural formulation, describing the cognitive–behavioural approach to therapy in an adolescent-friendly manner, and adapting language and treatment conditions to suit young people's needs.

While for some young people family life is smooth sailing, for many others it is fraught with turbulence. In this study of secondary students in metropolitan Melbourne the major concerns of children in intact and separated families were compared. The study also compared how young people cope according to their family circumstances. The 238 young people who live in intact households reported fights with parents and happiness as their major concerns. The major concern of the 114 young people in separated households was lack of access to the non-residential parent.

The investigation utilised the Adolescent Coping Scale (Frydenberg & Lewis, 1993a), an 80-item instrument developed and validated over a five-year period as an instrument to measure adolescent coping. The results of the study indicated that there was a significant variation in coping according to gender and a significant relationship between coping and family status. There were significant gender differences regardless of whether the families were intact or separated.

Psychologists play an important role in the provision of mental health support to young people. Some psychologists are incorporating apps into therapy with young people; however, little is understood about why such incorporation is taking place. Ten semi-structured qualitative interviews exploring why psychologists augment therapy by recommending or using apps alongside therapy were undertaken. Findings suggest that psychologists were prompted to update their therapeutic approach in response to client-initiated discussion of apps. Personal use of apps, higher engagement in therapy, increased access to therapeutic strategies between sessions, and a reduction of the stigma associated with externalising therapeutic strategies were also facilitating factors. Implications for practice such as apps currently complementing structured therapy over unstructured talk therapy, and further research are explored.

Depression and externalising behaviour disorders frequently occur together in adolescence and are associated with a marked increase in symptom severity and poorer outcome. Clinical treatment research and early intervention programs for depression have not addressed the specific cognitive and interpersonal deficits associated with comorbidity. This study presents a pilot evaluation of modifications to the ACE (Adolescents Coping with Emotions) early intervention group program for depression for 17 students attending four special behaviour schools. The modified program, m-ACE, included content to address cognitive distortions, anger management and interpersonal problems. Participants reported improvements in depression symptoms and externalising behaviours. The program achieved high satisfaction ratings from participants and the drop-out rate was low. This is a promising approach for further development and targeting of early intervention programs for this complex population.

Critical incident frameworks applied within schools are a means to support school staff to respond and guide planning to reduce critical incidents rates. This article explores the significance of the Therapeutic Crisis Intervention in Schools (TCI-S) critical incident framework to decrease the prevalence of behavioural critical incidents and to improve staff and student emotional competence in schools. The application of the TCI-S framework to reduce critical incidents within the United States and the United Kingdom school systems are demonstrated through upskilling school staff in social-emotional and co-regulation skills. It is suggested that TCI-S has the potential to support students with behavioural and emotional challenges and increase staff competency to implement trauma-informed practices that ultimately will reduce critical incidents.

In a world where the only constant is change, schools are faced with the need to adapt creatively to changing societal demands, parental expectations, and children with increasingly diverse needs. Lasting and effective change can only occur with systemic and organisational change, and this essay argues that school-based psychologists are an invaluable, but potentially overlooked, resource in driving and supporting effective, evidence-supported, organisational change in schools. It is suggested that this can occur best when school-based psychologists are able to move away from direct service models that treat individual children to a systemic model that supports whole-school change.

School counsellors and psychologists will encounter students affected by addiction. When this occurs many will simply refer the students to specialist services within the community. Such referrals are not always an appropriate action for many reasons. School counsellors and psychologists have the professional characteristics required to create a therapeutic alliance and know the behavioural strategies needed for basic addiction treatment. It is suggested that school counsellors and psychologists add some basic knowledge, awareness, and skill relating to addiction to their professional development and, when possible, address the addiction problems of their students directly. Arguments regarding why school counsellors and psychologists should treat addiction problems are given. Moreover, how school counsellors and psychologists can briefly address addiction problems is outlined. Finally, resources on addiction are provided.

Within schools the teacher has membership of a small group which provides belonging, support and validation. Counsellors, who often cover many schools, also have a need to be accepted as a member of a group. This need is too easily overlooked as the role of counsellor is frequently seen as one who provides for the needs of others.

The aim of the MM+ initiative is to build the capacity of secondary schools to ensure optimal outcomes of students with high needs in the area of mental health. This is important for many reasons including the fact that poor psychological wellbeing in students has been found to lead to behavioural difficulties at school that can then serve as obstacles to learning and further development. Therefore, it is important for schools to focus on supporting students with high mental health needs in order to improve student wellbeing, behaviour and academic potential. The following article discusses the research findings in regard to these relationships. These findings are also examined within a discussion of how schools can help to improve emotional and behavioural problems from within the classroom, including tips about how this was achieved by the MindMatters Plus demonstration schools.

Challenging behaviours in young children impact upon schools and families and can lead to more serious challenges in adolescence and adulthood. In the last decade, there has been an increasing trend towards the development of early intervention and prevention programs that serve to draw on child competencies to ameliorate some of the factors that may increase a child's susceptibility to ongoing challenging behaviours. This article reports on a recently evaluated program titled the Early Impact (EI) Program. Some of the unique features of the program are examined, including the home and school components of the intervention that emphasise the strength-based philosophy that underpins the program. A summary of key findings of a recent evaluation of the EI program are also presented that highlight the program's effectiveness and utility for early childhood practitioners working with at-risk children in regular school communities. Finally, recommendations for specific practices in the implementation of intervention programs as well as areas for future research are identified that would serve to extend the current body of knowledge focussing on effective early intervention and prevention frameworks for young children and their families.

There is a perception among educational communities that guidance officers are often working on their own agendas which are at cross-purposes to the needs of schools. This study was undertaken to investigate the legitimacy of those perceptions using 22 areas of guidance operation. The sample included 80% of secondary principals and 100% of secondary guidance officers in Clusters 1-5, South Coast Educational Region in Queensland. The study found that there were high correlations between guidance officers and principals in their perceptions of present and preferred guidance practice. The area of consultation with administration and staff however indicated that there was little or no correlation between present and preferred operation. This was targeted by both guidance officers and principals for improved operation. Consultation and communication represents a key area for supervision of operation.

The number of students who are identified as experiencing behavioural difficulties in the mainstream school setting is growing. However, current efforts by teachers to address these behavioural difficulties are seriously limited because of lack of training in the procedures for assessing and working with difficult behaviour. This paper will argue that the apparent failure of traditional “behaviour modification” in producing positive changes in difficult behaviour lies in its prescriptive application of general strategies to specific student problems. This approach to behaviour change is ineffective because it is not based on an understanding of the reasons for difficult behaviour. The functional assessment framework for investigating and understanding student difficulties will be presented as a more efficient means of changing the behaviour problems that occur in the classroom. At the foundation of this framework is the assumption that meaningful and long-term changes to difficult behaviour can only result from teaching the student to behave differently rather than focusing on the elimination of problem behaviour.

There is a multitude of counselling theories that have gained respectability for their theoretical and practical contributions to the profession. Although such theories have been instrumental in developing useful therapies, there remain significant differences in their interventions and techniques. Debates flourish over which school of counselling is better and which contribute to the best positive outcomes. Research has confirmed that there is no significant amount of outcome difference between the varying schools and that there is not one therapy that is superior in contributing to quality outcomes. A critical basic question has resurfaced in recent times; what makes counselling effective? If each school of counselling is done differently and uses different techniques, how then does each work? Part of the explanation comes from the “working alliance.” The working alliance that comprises the bond, goals and tasks that form a trans-theoretical view will be reviewed and explored with a focus on their application to counselling.

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a brief interest inventory intervention on career decision self-efficacy in an undergraduate sample. A pretest-posttest equivalent group design compared students who completed an interest inventory and participated in two sessions of its interpretation, students who only completed an interest inventory, and students who received no career intervention. Participants completed the Career Decision Self-Efficacy Scale — Short Form before and at the end of the intervention. The results indicated that both experimental groups had significant gains on career decision self-efficacy, whereas no significant gains were observed for the control group. Although both treatment conditions were effective, the feedback group appeared to be more powerful in increasing career decision self-efficacy. By participating in a feedback group and completing the activities in their interest profiles, a client had the opportunity to be actively involved in his/her own career process instead of passively completing an inventory and receiving no feedback. As well, clients had the opportunity to check the interpretations of their profile and share their results with other clients having similar career difficulties.

While poor parental bonding has been linked with psychological distress, few studies have assessed bonding with mothers and fathers separately among adolescents and whether there are gender differences in the relationships between bonding and psychological distress. Additionally, low self-esteem has been shown to predict psychological distress, but low self-esteem may develop as a result of poor bonding with parental figures. We explored the relationships between (a) perceived maternal and paternal bonding factors and (b) psychological distress, and examined whether self-esteem mediated these relationships in a non-clinical sample of 337 adolescents (aged 13–17 years, M = 14.17, 50.6% female) in Canberra, Australia. Relative to males, females reported lower levels of self-esteem and higher levels of psychological distress. For females, low self-esteem and perceived maternal or paternal rejection predicted higher levels of psychological distress, whereas low self-esteem predicted psychological distress for males. Implications for future research and further considerations are discussed.

Collaboration between normally separate agencies involved in cases of child mental health, and those supporting their participation and inclusion in school settings, is being increasingly promoted as the answer to intervening in a more ecologically valid and responsive manner. Yet a clear-cut evidence base supporting interagency collaboration in practice is hindered by wide variation in how collaboration is defined, how collaborative initiatives are established and run, and how the success of widely varying programs is interpreted or evaluated. Despite this variation, some strong indicators of success continue to appear. An overview of the literature on interagency collaboration in the context of child mental health, special education, and wellbeing is presented, including risks, benefits, and indicators of success.