Teacher School Counsellor

**Position Information**:
School counsellors are an essential part of the department’s school counselling service.

They provide counselling and psychological assessment of students to complement and enhance the work of teachers to strengthen student learning and wellbeing outcomes, and they help families understand and manage their children’s learning and mental health needs. This is a truly collegiate role offering unique challenges and opportunities - both in your professional development and your ability to make an impact on the lives of children and young people.

School counsellors receive regular, individual professional supervision with the Senior Psychologist Education and participate in group and peer supervision as a member of the broader district school counselling team. You will most likely be collaborating with a number of school communities and colleagues, as well as outside agencies, with the opportunity to use and expand the full range of your skills and expertise as part of a supportive, multidisciplinary team. School counsellors are provided with regular opportunities to participate in continuing professional development and the NSW Department of Education will support you to complete or maintain your registration with the Psychology Board of Australia. Other benefits include school holiday leave, travel allowances, and health and wellbeing benefits such as our Fitness Passport program. The department will also cover your indemnity insurance as a psychologist.

The shool counsellor will be a part of a solid team who service the Fairfield group of schools, based at Fairfield High School. Fairfield Public, Fairfield Heights and Chester Hill High are all a part of the network that the position may service. The students at these schools include main stream, Special Education Units and Intensive English Centres. Many of the students come from overseas, with most being refugees from a low socio-economic background. They have many complex issues, caused by experiencing war, loss and having little to no formal education before arriving in Australia. The school counsellor service provides an instrumental part of the wraparound support these students receive from their schools and this includes liaising with external services, linking them with additional professionals and undertaking comprehensive assessments of their psychological, academic and social status for the purposes of specialised referrals and school based support plans.

**Selection Criteria**:
We are looking for School Counsellors with qualifications in Education and Psychology. To be successful in these roles you will have:

- Teaching qualifications and eligibility for an approval to teach in NSW Department of Education schools
- Be a registered or provisionally registered psychologist, or eligible for registration with the Psychology Board of Australia
- Have demonstrated understanding of the mental health needs of children and young people
- Experience in counselling children and young people using evidence-based interventions
- Experience in cognitive, emotional and behavioural assessment of children and young people
- Well-developed interpersonal, oral and written communication skills, including report writing
- Ability to work collaboratively and liaise with key stakeholders to enhance outcomes for children and young people
- Knowledge of and commitment to the Department's Aboriginal education policies

**Conditions**:
Ability and willingness to travel between worksites.

**Special Notes**:
Successful applicants will be provided with a Departmental induction program, ongoing professional learning and professional supervision.

Find out more about working in the school counselling service

Visit the Department’s School counselling service pages to discover more about working as a school psychologist or school counsellor in NSW public schools.

About the NSW Department of Education