Between the mid 1940's and the mid 1980's psychology, guidance and counselling services were established and rapidly expanded within Australian state departments of education. This occurred in a socio-political context where the values of social justice and concern for the disadvantaged were regarded as important by communities looking to governments to reflect these values through appropriate policies and programs. Since then a distinct change has occurred. Economic Rationalism and the move to greater school autonomy has led to the abandonment of central structures and centralised training that supported professional psychological services in schools. Schools increasingly will be expected to “buy in” contracted services as perceived needs arise. The resulting deprof essionalisation, whilst shared at this time by psychologists in other agencies, is particularly threatening in the case of school psychology. By destroying continuity of service and the possibilities of building of long-term relationships, it will reduce opportunities to initiate those school-wide initiatives that can maximise the impact of case work. The authors are of the view that, given the prevailing ideology, governments will persist in ridding themselves of responsibility and the expense of providing psychological and counselling services to school communities. At the same time information from principals suggests that schools' will find it difficult to afford these services from their limited global budgets, despite urgent and growing need for more, not less school-based support for teachers, students and parents. As a profession we must look to old and new models of service delivery and devise practical ways of providing cost-effective, equitable and high quality services to schools. This paper attempts to bring forward the issue as one for urgent debate and planning by our professional associations. Rather than let the profession wither away or end up providing services for the wealthy only, we must take action ourselves to see that it not only survives, but thrives. ( In this paper, the terms guidance officer, school counsellor and school psychologist are used as if they are interchangeable. The reason is that education departments around Australia use different names for those of their student support workers who have qualifications in education, psychology and counselling.)

A total of 130 guidance counsellors and primary school principals completed a quantitative and qualitative survey which focused on perceptions of what school guidance and counselling would be like in 25 years. There were a few differences noted between the guidance counsellors' and the principals' responses but in general similar beliefs were held by all who participated. All respondents were bullish about the employment outlook for the future, with primary principals the most optimistic. There were a number of similarities between the quantitative and qualitative findings and these are outlined. These included noting the increased importance of technology, counselling, consultation, and professional development.

This article describes a novel format for enhancing the professional skills of school counsellors who are faced with increasing demands to adopt a consultancy model in order to manage their work responsibilities. The system, known as SHARK-Net, utilises the Internet in a consultancy model which links school counsellors with expert support. The purpose of this article is to describe the communication features of the system and how information is managed, and to explain its benefits to the development of consultancy skills among school counsellors.

Australia has one of the most highly mobile populations in the Western World and yet there is very little awareness or appreciation of the social and educational impact of the phenomenon in this country. School personnel are particularly culpable in this regard, maintaining an image of schooling as a system focussed on relatively stable class groups. The available data, however, paint a very different picture, and one which compels not only the attention of educators but a variety of individuals from the helping professions and welfare agencies.This article explores the nature of student mobility and its effects on children. Particular attention is given to support programs for mobile children with the focus on policy development, remedial instruction, and counselling.

The dynamic nature of Australia's population is a significant demographic feature of Australian life and yet it is not widely recognized or appreciated by the community at large or by the country's policy makers. As with other highly mobile populations in developed countries around the world, there exists an illusion of stability in both the work-place and in domestic life (Settles, 1993).

Acknowledgements: This research was funded by a small Australian Research Council grant to the authors. We wish to thank the students, principals and staff of the participating schools for their ready cooperation and Ms Fran Brew for her assistance on this project.

It has been assumed that the dezoning policy in the NSW public school system would lead to increased opportunities for students and increased mobility between schools in the senior years as students change schools to obtain a preferred set of subject choices. This paper investigates such issues by asking a sample of 1048 year 10 students about both subject choice and their intended school for the senior years. Students who expected to change schools or who intended to remain at the same school despite a subject mismatch were asked for the reasons for this decision. Subject choice plays a relatively unimportant role. Overall, there is great hesitation to change schools unless there are clearly perceived benefits, such as changing to a Senior High School. Implications for the advising of year 10 students by Careers and Guidance Officers are discussed.

This study compared the coping strategies and styles of 30 learning disabled adolescents with 30 non learning disabled adolescents matched in age, gender and ethnicity from a large urban high school in Queensland. Results showed that the learning disabled adolescents use some different coping styles and strategies to their non learning disabled peers. The learning disabled group showed less tendency to relax, or work to achieve goals. They tended not to focus on the positive and not to attempt to solve problems. Rather they exhibited a higher tendency to use wishful thinking and believed that they could not cope. Cognitive and social skills deficits are proposed as the likely contributors to the differences. The implications of these findings are discussed.

This study was a qualitative examination of the stress responses and coping strategies of 21 teachers (12 women & 9 men), and school response mechanisms following a critical incident involving the death of a student or colleague. In order to explore the possibility that deaths of a relatively common nature can evoke high stress and grief responses, exceptional or large scale events, or those generating widespread public or media attention, were excluded. Findings showed that the impact on participants was high, and included cognitive, emotional, functional and physiological responses. Six discrete wellness factors, considered to contribute to effective coping, were identified: emotional and practical support, active involvement, responding according to individual need, access to information, readiness, and leadership. A salutogenic (wellness) approach to critical incident management was considered to provide a comprehensive and effective model for supporting individual teachers and the school in mobilising coping and restorative strategies and mechanisms. Implications for critical incident management in schools, and directions for further study, are discussed.

This article reviews the research and literature relative to the range of psychosocial issues for children of divorce. It identifies methodological problems in current research as well as providing practical interventions for those providing therapeutic services to these children, adolescents, and families. The implications discussed will be a valuable resource for professional counsellors, psychologists, teachers, administrators, and parents.

This paper discusses the application of Gardner's (1983) Theory of Multiple Intelligence to the counselling of children, particularly young children, who have not developed the language required for more verbally orientated counselling sessions. Specifically this paper asks: Does Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligence have an application to counselling theory, and if so how would this theory impact on counselling practice?

The broad roles of Educational Guidance and Student Welfare imply a multifaceted approach to complex problems. Too often, pressure of time and caseloads reduces intervention to short term, single mode remediation with no certainty of relapse prevention. The following paper describes a group counselling approach in a large Victorian secondary college that sought to address these and other issues.

There is a great deal to be said about Boys' Education. The issues are broad and sometimes overwhelming. Boys' Education Issues need to be viewed as Nutshells to allow us to see issues succinctly and to see intervention points — or perhaps to suggest ways of just starting to ‘crack the nut’. This article outlines briefly some of the issues and concerns the writer is hearing most often about Boys' Education and looks at strategies to work on, suggesting levels of intervention for greater success. Most importantly the article suggests …

‘Let us not say Boys' Education is a nut too hard to crack’.

Teacher stress has an impact on the individual teacher, the organisation and the education system. This review examines the topic from a multifactorial perspective, defining teacher stress as the consequence of a range of interacting variables including person specific and organisational factors. A brief overview of stress management approaches is also presented. The reviewer contends that the problem of teacher stress requires a holistic approach and may be most sucessfully managed in a systemic context.