A study of teachers' views on counselling and the implication of these on referral patterns

This is a study of teachers in 3 secondary schools in Dudley to see how their own personal views on counselling impact upon their referral patterns of pupils to the Counselling Service. It elicits the values, attitudes and beliefs from the teachers by using a questionnaire and explores the reasons they believe that people become distressed and what they think they might do to help themselves. It also relates this information to case studies and gives them an opportunity to recommend which pupils in the case studies they would prioritise for a referral to counselling. This is all then explored and analysed together with information from some of the questions which asks them to provide a metaphor for their description of what they think the experience of counselling feels like. Janette Newton