Our Services
Working Practices during the Coronavirus Crisis
As we are no longer able to carry out our usual visits to schools for training and counselling at this time, we have been working hard at exploring how best we can maintain our relationship with the children, families and teachers we have been supporting.
We are conscious that these will be difficult times for all families faced with the loss of daily routine and new physical distancing rules, potential financial and job pressures as well as having the new responsibilities of home-schooling and maintaining contact with elderly family members remotely.
All this will take its toll on children, young people and their families and we want to do all we can to alleviate this now and to work towards providing support for these families once life begins to take on more familiar rhythms.
Support for Children and Families from our Partner Schools
Since the beginning of lock-down, our school workers have been keeping in touch with families through regular ‘check-ins’ via phone, text messages and email; letting them know that we are there for them and their children remains our utmost priority. Listening to their worries, stresses and anxieties allows us to bear some of their burden and sharing these with us will ultimately benefit the children too.
We have been offering the opportunity to talk to children and young people through the on-line video medium ‘Zoom’ if they wish or to continue to talk to our counsellors over the phone if they feel more comfortable. This approach is ongoing and has been consistent since schools closed in March and we have found it to be effective and successful.
We continue to work alongside parents in order to maintain this contact with children and young people and as always, confidentiality and privacy for the young person will remain our priority.
My 8 year old daughter really enjoyed her Zoom session with her counsellor. The counsellor phoned me in advance to discuss how the session would work - it was very professional and confidential. My daughter really enjoyed the session; she played a game and did some role play. It really lifted her spirits and she bounced out afterwards a really happy little girl. Thank you bccs for making it happen!
If you are concerned about your child and would like to speak to us about organising this for your child or young person, please email Catherine Munns.
Visit our resources pages for ideas around Talking about Coronavirus and Anxiety and Mindfulness activities to do with children and young people.
Support for Children and Families through our Self-Referral Pathway
The Self-Referral team is now offering parents, children and young people the opportunity for a check-in and therapeutic support through the on-line medium ‘Zoom’ or by telephone if they would prefer.
If you would like to speak to us about using our in-house counselling service, please email Sarah D’Lima.
Support for School Staff: Supervisions
We are keen to support school staff at this difficult time. We already provide a version of clinical supervision to any member of school staff who may wish to avail themselves of this.
Supervision offers a confidential space in which to offload, talk about working with students and to air any organisational issues. It may well be that personal issues are increasingly becoming part of working in school and these can be explored also.
All schools who have an SLA (Service Level Agreement) with us are now entitled to 5 FREE hours of supervision per week. It will be up to each school if and when they want to use this service and to allocate time to each member of staff.
If you are interested in taking up this offer then please email Louise Picton.
Support for the School Community: Bereavement
Sadly, one area that will need to be addressed in future months is the area of bereavement. Recent government safeguarding guidelines suggest that all schools need to be considering how they are going to support the school community in times of an inevitable increase in illness and death.
If you would like to contact our team to support you in doing this, please email Catherine Munns in the first instance.
We can offer help with formulating a policy and in supporting children, young people and staff in this difficult area.
We have also devised a Schools' Bereavement Pack which may be useful for parents and school staff and is available to download from our Bereavement Resources page.
Please check back regularly as we update our working practices in line with Government guidelines.
Please read on for further information about the services we provide under normal circumstances:
Training Provision Sept/Oct 2020
A dedicated worker in your school
Mental Health Training in Schools
Workshops for Pupils
Support for School Staff
Support for Families
Frequently Asked Questions
