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Counselling for Students

The Care Team

The Care Team is a multi-disciplinary group of teachers and other staff and is responsible for putting supports in place to ensure the physical and mental wellbeing of students in the school. It includes the Principal, the Deputy Principal, the Home School Community Liaison teacher, the Chaplain, the Behaviour for Learning teacher, the Special Educational Needs Coordinator and the Guidance Councillors.

Chaplain

School Chaplains are a faith presence in the school community and are available to all students and staff. CCS has a full time Chaplain on staff. The Chaplain meets and supports students when referred by management, year heads or as required as various situations/issues arise.

In-school Psychotherapist

As part of the ongoing commitment to supporting our students the school employs a psychotherapist who attends the school for one full day per week.

  • Students, who have been pre-assessed through referral, and are not in receipt of therapeutic input outside of school, can be referred in for weekly sessions.
  • This facility is in place to offer immediate support for students in need or distress

Guidance Councillors

The role of the two Guidance Counsellors is to support, encourage, advise and provide information for students to assist them in making life/career choices through counselling.

These choices cover three broad dimensions:

  • Personal and social
  • Education
  • Career

Art Therapist

Cabinteely Cs introduced Art Therapy for one day a week recently and have found that our students have responded very well to the non-talk approach to counselling. Students are referred to the Art therapist by the Care Team and year heads.

Anti-Bullying in Cabinteely Community School

Our Anti-Bullying Policy was drafted in consultation with students, teachers, parents and staff and was ratified by the Board of Management in December 2021. The focus for our Anti-Bullying Campaign for 2021-22 was to reduce name-calling, which was seen by students as the most prevalent form of bullying in the school. The students compiled lists of bullying language that was common and these were included in our Anti-Bullying Policy.

Students told us that they wanted name calling in class dealt with privately after the incident and wanted both the name caller and the targeted student(s) spoken with and the matter referred to the relevant year head for follow up. A survey at the end of the year indicated that 65% students noticed a reduction in name calling and a similar number felt that teachers were more actively dealing with name calling when it occurred as a result of the campaign.

We consulted with students in 2022-23 on the area of racial bullying. We are a school in which thirty different countries are represented and we wanted to hear from our students about whether students born outside of Ireland experienced any negative behaviour on the basis of their race. The data has been interesting, so much so that we have decided to continue this focus into 2023-24 and to continue this student led campaign for another year.

The following table shows the agreed approach to reporting bullying by staff.  All incidents must be reported.

Anti-Bullying Procedures for Teachers

When a student indicates directly or indirectly to you that they are being bullied, or in any way mistreated by another, please follow these procedures:

  1. Refer matter to the Year Head unless the nature of the report dictates that you inform the DLP immediately.
  2. The Year Head speaks to the students involved discretely and individually.
    If the issue is minor, the year head will counsel all students involved appropriately.
    The Year Head will also contact parents of the child accused of bullying and the child who may have been bullied.
  3. If the year head determines that the situation meets the threshold for bullying as per the Anti-Bullying Guidelines or that the behaviour is repeated and has become a Bullying issue, they will report it to the Deputy Principal and will fill out an Anti-Bullying Record Form.
  4. The issue(s) are further investigated by the year head.
    The student who had been targeted fills out the Bullying Incident Report Form.
    The student(s) who engaged in the behaviour fills out an Incident Form.
  5. Parents of student(s) who has been targeted and students who have engaged in the behaviour are updated and may be invited to the school.
  6. Students then engage in a counselling session with the Year Head and/or the Deputy Principal.
    Disciplinary sanctions may apply for repeated or serious incidents to the student(s) engaged in bullying behaviour, eg, report note, detention.
  7. Serious bullying may result in the student being suspended/expelled.
  8. All records are retained/filed by the year head, the Deputy Principal and the Principal.

All bullying complaints must be addressed within 10 school days of the first report.

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