Bullying varies in frequency, intensity, duration and hence severity, and contributes uniquely and directly to mental health problems, with severe and long-lasting consequences. Almost a half of school-age students report being bullied in the past year. All school staff, especially school counsellors, are uniquely positioned to reduce student bullying through proactive primary prevention, early intervention, and treatment. However, given the intensity of schools, and counsellors’ limited time and resources, robust evidence is needed to guide their unique contribution to a whole-school approach to reducing bullying behaviour. Since 1999, a pipeline of 18 Friendly Schools studies, including seven randomised control trials, have developed and tested ways to build all school staff’s capacity to effectively target and deliver evidence-based strategies across the prevention, early intervention and treatment continuum to reduce harm from all forms of bullying behaviour. This article describes the implications of Friendly Schools’ research findings relevant and applicable to the work of school counsellors, as part of a whole-school approach to bullying prevention. These implications demonstrate the interconnectedness of actions of all members of the school community, and the need for a whole-school commitment to preventing and reducing bullying, to realise the important synergistic contribution of school counsellors.

Bullying and cyberbullying are global phenomena negatively impacting on children’s and young people’s (CYP’s) mental health and wellbeing and affecting their school social experiences and learning outcomes. Many interventions and prevention approaches have been employed over the decades, most impacting differentially, with some success in certain contexts and situations but not universally, suggesting the need for more contextualised, nuanced approaches at the whole school, community, individual and peer-group levels. The recognition of the importance of student and teacher voice in recent years has heralded interest in co-design practices to deliver more context-relevant interventions and prevention strategies. This article considers how participatory design and co-design practices can form part of the prevention and intervention repertoire for schools, teachers, counsellors and psychologists in their quest to understand and reduce cyberbullying and/or bullying (C/B) behaviours. Two case-study exemplars are provided that reflect the importance of context and student-centred relevancy to inform practice.

In light of concerning evidence that many young people with mental disorders are not receiving appropriate mental health intervention, school-based mental health screening has been advocated as one way to improve identification of at-risk youth. Despite having much promise, universal screening in schools remains a relatively uncommon practice internationally. Various barriers that deter school psychologists and counsellors from screening have been identified, including lack of resourcing to implement screening, lack of knowledge about the mechanics of how to carry out a screening program, and concern about how to manage the anticipated increased workload generated by following up identified students. In this practice-based paper we discuss a four-stage process that guides school psychologists and counsellors in the establishment of a school-based screening program, with specific reference to overcoming perceived barriers.

The importance of social emotional learning (SEL) has been well acknowledged as a significant feature of education and emotional development across the life span. School psychologists play an important part as innovators, implementers and evaluators of resources in the social emotional domain. When it comes to the early years in the education system, social emotional aspects of the curriculum form the basis of the learning experience. Teachers utilise resources that enhance their classroom practice. Coping research and practice has had a long history in the literature, but the translation to early childhood educational practice, supported by school psychologists, is a more recent development. This article details three innovations, namely, The Early Years Coping Cards, Families Coping and the COPE-Resilience Program. Development, applications, and evaluations are considered to highlight the significant role school psychologists and trainee psychologists can play.

As the field of Positive Education gains traction globally, there is a recognised concern around sustainability. Many schools utilise external providers to engage and educate schools on ‘wellbeing science’, which in the main is comprised of research from the field of Positive Psychology. This often involves a significant financial and time investment, and while most schools have good intentions for their desired end states, often the initial motivation for change is impacted by the many competing responsibilities occurring within a school setting. Those schools that have successfully implemented strategic and sustainable approaches often continue to work with an external consultant who guides the school to successfully apply their learnings. Many schools, however, are unable to fund ongoing consultancy and are required to utilise their own internal resources. In many cases, this is the inspired and motivated educators who are keen to support the initiative, yet who are generally time-poor, often with other learning and extra-curricular responsibilities. More often than not, the school counsellor has not been consulted or included in these initiatives. We explore the potential role of the school counsellor in providing guidance on the implementation of a Positive Education approach aimed at improving mental health and wellbeing and performance.

Parent-child relationships influence learning throughout a child’s formal schooling and beyond. The quality of parenting children receive has a major influence on their learning and developmental capabilities. Parental influence is important in the early years of life and extends throughout a child’s schooling. Parenting has a pervasive influence on children’s language and communication, executive functions and self-regulation, social and peer relationships, academic attainment, general behaviour and enjoyment of school. Schools can further enhance educational outcomes for students by developing the resources and expertise needed to engage parents as partners in learning. This can be achieved by delivering and facilitating access to a comprehensive system of high-quality, culturally informed, evidence-based parenting support programs. In this article, recent developments in the Triple P system of parenting support are used to illustrate how schools can develop a low-cost, comprehensive, high-quality parenting support strategy that blends universal components with targeted components for more vulnerable children. We identify potential organisational and logistical barriers to implementing parenting support programs and ways to address these.

The use of mindfulness as a tool to improve mental health has received increased attention. Schools provide ideal environments for short-term prevention and skill development for mental health. Further, teachers can promote and reinforce students’ daily use of mindfulness. This study explored the effects of a short-term group mindfulness-based intervention on the mental health of adolescents who have experienced trauma. A total of 49 high school students received a mindfulness-based intervention session followed by homework and teacher reinforcement. The results suggest that a short-term group intervention for mindfulness can potentially improve mindfulness attention awareness and reduce depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents. As there was no control group, additional research examining the effectiveness of the intervention is essential.

School counsellors implement preventative programs to build student resilience and coping skills to counteract the rising mental health needs of children in Australia. School-based meditation programs are effective for individuals and groups, with documented benefits. Most literature examines mindfulness meditation, and the current, exploratory study aimed to add to the research breadth by considering stillness meditation. The stillness program ‘Let’s be Still’ is a 10-week, class-based program that was conducted between 2015–2020 by the school psychologist in a regional, independent New South Wales school. Data were collected from questionnaire responses of 169 Year 2 (7–9 years) and five teachers to document what the children had learnt and how it helped them. Thematic analysis of the responses revealed an emphasis on stillness promoting positive emotions and behaviours. Both students and teachers articulated that learning and practising stillness provided the students with tools to be calm, relaxed and settled, to deal with conflict and to have a break from the busyness of the school day. While the study design does not allow generalisability of the program’s effectiveness, this study may offer input for school counsellors considering the implementation of a school-based meditation program.

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.

There is growing evidence of an escalation of depression in young people. In light of this, schools are increasingly being confronted with the challenge of how to best manage students with depressive disorders. Such management includes consideration of the academic, behavioural, social and emotional implications of the disorder. This article provides school practitioners and management with a review of what constitutes ‘best practice’ in school management of students with depressive disorders. It adopts the mental health intervention framework of the Institute of Medicine, considering how school-based intervention occurs across the four domains of mental health promotion, prevention, case identification and treatment, as well as maintenance of students with or at-risk of depression. It provides a checklist for practitioners at each stage of the Institute of Medicine intervention spectrum. Moreover, it takes the view that best practice in psychology is always evidence-based practice, although discerning a clear path through the available research is not always obvious.