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Tel: 0113 388 5400
Fax: 0113 388 5401
Email: info@catholic-care.org.uk
Our dedicated team of social workers also have qualifications or experience in counselling. We offer a professional counselling service to children and young people, parents and staff. The counselling methods include person centred counselling, one to one and small group counselling and solution focused counselling.
How the service works in practice
Each educational establishment has it own policy and practices and we will fit into your system or help you refine or develop new systems that meet the pastoral and individual needs of pupils. We work alongside your staff as part of the whole school team. Some of the practices are set out below.
Appointment System
A discreet system, agreed with the school, ensures that children and young people's whereabouts and activities related to the school social worker are known of and approved. A standard permission slip is available.
Referrals
A referral system ensures that the source of referral, reason for referral and outcome are known. Clear criteria for a referral will be agreed with the school and this may include self-referral, referral via the pastoral services or school staff, and all referrals should be acceptable to pupils and agreed voluntarily by them.
Contact Time
Time spent with children and young people will vary, although a session would not normally exceed a usual class time of 40 - 50 minutes.
Facilities
A dedicated room where children and young people can feel secure and comfortable is required. The space should be furnished in a way that distinguishes it from a classroom or teacher's office. A secure place to keep records, access to computer and telephone are also preferred requirements.
Confidentiality
The guarantee of confidentiality is important to promote the right relationship between pupils using the service and Catholic Care staff providing the service. All pupils using the service will be made aware that confidentiality cannot be absolute and there will be boundaries of confidentiality that may include school staff, parents and Social Services where there are serious, perceived or actual, of risks to the health or wellbeing of people.
Parent(s) / Carer(s), Confidentiality & the Gillick Principle
The rights of a child to receive confidential support from our schools social work team must be balanced against the parental / carer responsibilities to know when those in their charge need independent help and support. Our staff, when working with children/young people under the age of 16 years, assess the child/young person's ability ‘to understand' and their ‘intelligence' to know what they are doing. In rare circumstances children can undertake counselling without parental permission. Normally a person under the age of 16 would require parental consent for counselling unless the Gillick Principle was applied and could be evidenced. It is not the policy of our schools social work service to work without parental consent in such situations.
Duty of Care
Catholic Care has a strong tradition of working sensitively and carefully in matters of child protection and care of vulnerable people. We operate a child protection policy, work closely with local authorities and operate guidelines designed to protect vulnerable children/young people and adults. We work in partnership with children, parents, carers, schools and statutory bodies on the best interests of the child.
Complaints
Catholic Care operates a complaints procedure that ensures that all complaints are dealt with promptly and fairly. Copies are available upon request and are in an accessible format for children and young people.
Records and Data Protection
The Data Protection Act 1998 promotes transparent and accessible recording systems and our records will form part of the ‘education record' of a child and therefore comes under the Data Protection Act 1998, and the use of these is governed by specific sections of the Act. Access to records is potentially available to a child or person with parental responsibility, but with certain exceptions. Access to records would be denied where there are concerns about child protection or risk. Careful consideration must also be given to the rights of the child to their own privacy and confidentiality set out in the Human Rights Act 1998 (Article 8) and Schedule 2, Section 4(3) 6(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998.
Evaluation and Monitoring
Good analysis of the service measured against agreed criteria will demonstrate how the service is working, its successes and areas in need of improvement.
Good information will be used to report on the difference the service makes to individual pupils and a school's ability to care for all its pupils.
Examples of information gathered, analysed, interpreted and used for evaluation and planning are:
Pupil data
Start and finish times, gender, year group, issues and problems, number of sessions and face-to-face work, contact time, progress towards agreed outcomes, milestones and achievements set against school targets.
School data
Number of pupils benefiting from service individually, and by groups. Input, output, outcome and milestones against pre-agreed school objectives. Quarterly and annual reports with quantative and qualitative information useful for school reports, pastoral care system reporting and planning new developments.
Service data
Confidential reports and data on the service, with national statistical data for comparison, will be made available to assist you to compare the outputs and outcomes of the service with the national scene.
Catholic Care acts to support those in need of its services, especiallly the weak and the vunerable and it acts as an advocate for those unable to represent themselves
The primary purpose of the agency is to foster and influence a vision of how people can live together in Christian charity, love and justice, by taking the "Caring Church into the Community
