College Counselling

As St Andrew’s moves to ‘Online Learning’, the College Counselling Service will remain accessible and the College Psychologists will endeavour to provide remote counselling services to students and families during term time. At this stage, only phone counselling will be available however in necessary circumstances an option for video conferencing (via Microsoft Teams) can be offered. Please read the ‘Things to Consider’ information sheet before speaking with the College Psychologist.

College Psychologists are registered psychologists who must abide by a strict code of ethics. One area that is particularly important to young people is the issue of confidentiality. Psychologists MUST comply with legislation, policy and professional standards in relation to confidentiality of information disclosed, recorded and stored about students and families. Prior to delivering the counselling service, the psychologist will always inform the student / parent of the limitations to confidentiality.

Parental Consent MUST be obtained when the student is in Primary School.

Student Consent alone may be relied upon when the student is in Secondary School and is deemed to have the capacity to give informed consent to access the College Counselling Service.

Referrals or requests for your child to access the College Counselling Service are encouraged to be made via your child’s relevant pastoral care team member.

In the Primary School this will be the Primary Leadership Team & in Secondary School this will be your child’s Head of Year / Dean of Students. A referral will then be sent to the College Counselling Service for allocation to either Karen Skepper or Sarah Padbury. Where appropriate or necessary, College Psychologists will also accept ‘self-referrals’ from students in the Secondary School. The College Counselling central email is counselling@saac.qld.edu.au