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Speaker 1: It almost seems odd to say, but primary school counseling

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Speaker 1: services are showing promising results. Over the past three years,

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Speaker 1: more than two hundred and twenty schools have taken part

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Speaker 1: in the zero project or this pilot. Eighty percent of

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Speaker 1: the students involved, so their mental health has improved. In

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Speaker 1: more than seventy five percent of the teachers and parents

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Speaker 1: say attendance and results have increased. So counselor dead phrase Isshoes,

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Speaker 1: director of Mirror Services, and is with us dead morning

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Speaker 1: to you, Su and Mike, how are you doing very well? Indeed,

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Speaker 1: thank you. How many kids do you see and how

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Speaker 1: many of them would need counseling? Do you think?

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Speaker 2: Oh? How many do we see? I mean, we're in

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Speaker 2: across five different schools in the Southern district, and we're

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Speaker 2: available to students who are year eight and under, so

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Speaker 2: all of those children can have access to counseling if

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Speaker 2: it's consented to by their parents. And so we're seeing

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Speaker 2: at least five children a day and saying that we're

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Speaker 2: only like five hours in each of those schools or

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Speaker 2: ten hours in one of the biggest school so you know,

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Speaker 2: it's not a lot of counseling ours, but it is

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Speaker 2: making a significant difference.

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Speaker 1: How does it actually work? In other words, Varma, five

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Speaker 1: or six year old who approaches me to say, do

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Speaker 1: you want some counseling?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's identified either by their teacher, the students themselves

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Speaker 2: that are made aware that counseling's available to them, or

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Speaker 2: a parent can also refer them into the service. So

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Speaker 2: it's great that there's multiple ways that they can access

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Speaker 2: the services.

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Speaker 1: Was it so long ago that, I mean, I can't

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Speaker 1: imagine as a five year old somebody coming to me

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Speaker 1: an adult going hi, Mike, I'm just wondering if you'd

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Speaker 1: like some counseling. I would have had no idea what

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Speaker 1: you're talking about.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's a difficult concept for a child.

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Speaker 2: It really is positioned as a way as somebody to

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Speaker 2: talk to if there are you know, if you're not

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Speaker 2: sleeping well, or something's happened that's upset you and you're

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Speaker 2: not engaging in school or not wanting to come to school,

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Speaker 2: those sorts of things that's really doubt drilled down in

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Speaker 2: a basic level for children to understand. But we are

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Speaker 2: talking more year seven and eight and of course under

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Speaker 2: as well.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so when you say it has improved. How do

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Speaker 1: you know that? And do the kids tell you that?

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Speaker 1: And how would they quantify that in their own minds?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So there are questionnaires that we do that get,

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Speaker 2: you know, give a baseline of where somebody comes in

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Speaker 2: and how they're functioning, what their functioning is, and then afterwards,

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Speaker 2: after they've completed, so we can see the difference that

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Speaker 2: it makes. And they do do a session, you know,

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Speaker 2: how they found the session as well, so they're able

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Speaker 2: to report on what their experience is like. But I

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Speaker 2: think the reporting's coming from not just the children themselves,

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Speaker 2: but parents and their teachers. So it's like as not

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Speaker 2: quite a three sixty, but it's almost you know, there's

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Speaker 2: a number of points of input into that.

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Speaker 1: Well, do you give them coping mechanisms? Because I'd imagine

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Speaker 1: a lot of the problems if the kids have problems,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the problems we're at home. You can't

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Speaker 1: necessarily fix what's going on at home. Therefore you give

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Speaker 1: the kids a coping mechanism. Is that fair or not?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Yes, it is about strategies and coping and just

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Speaker 2: being able to talk about what's securing. But ideally working

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Speaker 2: with family is also important when you're working with children,

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Speaker 2: so where we can we involve family or where it's.

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Speaker 1: Needed to good stuff, I'm glad it's working well. Appreciate

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Speaker 1: the insight, did Praiser. Who's a Mirror services directory

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