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The role of a school counsellor in tackling the challenges faced by students, and how bullying is affecting at school (Part 1.13):

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There are multiple roles a counsellor does for student development at school- academic performance counselling, family related counselling, career counselling, school adjustment related aspects and so on.

One of the major tasks for a school counsellor is also to help a child plan for his future, whether that means continuing on to higher education, doing entrepreneurship, entering the workforce and so on. Ideally, a school counsellor should be involved with this process since a student entered school, providing guidance and study skills and intervening during times of poor or declining school performance. As we discussed in our previous articles, there are myriad challenges which counsellors face to discharge their duties.

As reported in an article from UWA online of USA, there are some school counsellors who go an extra mile, even accompany students on college visits and walk them through the application process (uwa.edu, N.A). This cannot be possible in all situations, as counsellor student ratio has to be at a manageable ratio. Many schools in developing countries do not have counsellors at all, or they do not have counsellor student ratio balance. The ASCA (American School Counselor Association) recommends that schools should strive to maintain a 250:1 student-to-counsellor ratio.

There are many student challenges school counsellors tackle, in this article we have done a focussed study on school bullying.

 

School bullying is a major challenge at school:

 

School bullying is also a major challenge in schools, which affects the child’s performance at school and life altogether. What do we mean by bullying? This means one who is habitually cruel, insulting, or threatening to others who are weaker, smaller, or in some way vulnerable (Merriam-webster, N.A). The bullying should meet certain requirements to be considered bullying. These are the imbalance of power, repeated, distress, and provocation.

 

School bullying may occur either in schools, on campus, or outside of school, but it is due to relationships created in school settings. There are many types of bullying, such as direct bullying or indirect bullying, verbal bullying, physical bullying, emotional bullying, sexual bullying, cyberbullying to name the major ones. In order to tackle cyberbullying, some school counsellors monitor social media to varying degrees. As a preventative measure, counsellors are also involved with media education and lessons about how to use social media responsibly (uwa.edu, N.A).

 

Reasons based on which bullying might happen:

 

The reasons for being bullied reported most often by students include physical appearance, race/ethnicity, Gender, Disability, Religion, Sexual orientation. The reasons are not the same for all the schools and regions, the reasons will vary based on economic, sociological and cultural factors of the school/region /country (uopeople, N.A).



Few statistical data on occurrences of bullying:

 

As per statistics in the USA with National Center for Education Statistics, more than one out of five students report being bullied in their life. As per this statistics in below table 1.1, we have presented a report based on percentage where the children have been bullied (uopeople, N.A)

 

Below is the report where bullied students reported that bullying occurred in the following places:

 

Table 1.1

Percentage of occurrences of bullying

Where did it occur

42%

in the hallway (corridor) or stairwell at school 

34%

inside the classroom

22%

in the cafeteria

19%

outside on school grounds

10%

on the school bus

9%

in the bathroom or locker room


There are a few astonishing aspects from the above statistics. The major number of bullying occurrences area i.e. 42% happen in a school area (corridor) where nobody is there to monitor children on regular basis. And 9% occurrences are also reported in the bathroom and locker room usually where children spend very less time in school.

All the above details and statistics show that counsellors have a major role to play in school. And only a counsellor alone cannot run the show, all the school stakeholders should collaborate and work together.

Schools need to have policies in place and procedures that are enforced. Bringing anti-bullying into every part of the curriculum can also go a long way. For example, language arts teachers can find required novels/stories that give students empathy for others (uopeople, N.A).

Additionally schools should design a holistic wellbeing program. And also make sure that the legal compliances related to bullying framed by the concerned school boards, education departments should be followed.

Further reading:

https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/definition-of-bullying/

https://online.uwa.edu/news/challenges-for-school-counselors/

Click to read all the articles published in this series:

This is part of Children's mental health and wellbeing series brought to you by Credence  Learning Foundation. This article is taken from a study submitted as course work at Azim Premji University. The part covered in this series 1.13 is an additional research review work done by CLF on 15th Nov 2020. 

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