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Aims: School‐based humanistic counselling (SBHC) is a common psychological intervention for young people, particularly in the UK. However, studies have tended to suffer from high attrition rates, such that effects may have been over‐estimated. This paper describes a low budget ‘star topology’ practice research network (PRN) outcome evaluation of SBHC in a sample where attrition rates were minimised. Design: A practice‐based longitudinal study in a small PRN compared levels of psychological distress at first and last session from session‐by‐session data. Multilevel regression modelling was used to identify predictors of outcomes. Methods: Eight counsellors working across 11 schools agreed to use session‐by‐session self‐rating on the Young Person's CORE (YP‐CORE) yielding data from 256 young people aged 11 to 17. Predictors of outcomes were analysed using multilevel regression analysis. Results: Mean levels of distress on the YP‐CORE reduced from 18.29 (SD = 7.32) at baseline to 9.10 (SD = 6.19) at endpoint, giving a baseline to endpoint effect size of 1.26 (95% CI = 1.06–1.46). Lower levels of psychological distress at endpoint were associated with male clients, younger age groups, greater rates of attendance at counselling, and bereavement as a presenting problem. Conclusions: This ‘star topology’ PRN focused on a single study and demonstrated that such a system can provide relatively low cost, high quality data. The data showed that SBHC is associated with large reductions in psychological distress, and that this cannot be attributed to the high attrition rates of previous datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Levels of goal agreement between therapists and adult clients have been shown to relate to therapeutic outcomes. Understanding clients' goals for therapy, therefore, is an important area of study. Aims: The purpose of this study was to investigate the therapeutic goals that young people have in school‐based counselling, and the extent to which different types of goals are achieved. Method: The study is a post‐hoc analysis of data collected from two pilot randomised controlled trials (RCT) using the Goal Based Outcome (GBO) tool, in which 73 participants were allocated to either a counselling group or a waitlist control group. Thematic analysis was used to identify the main types of goals young people had; with descriptive quantitative analysis to identify the prevalence of these goals, and multi‐level analysis to identify whether some goals were attained to a greater extent than others. Results: The most frequent type of goals identified by young people related to increasing self‐confidence and self‐acceptance, followed by controlling or reducing anger, improving relationships with family, and increasing feelings of happiness. No significant relationship was found between the type of goal and the extent to which they were attained in counselling. Conclusion: Young people in counselling are particularly concerned with improving their self‐confidence, and this suggests a somewhat different focus to the counselling work than that which emerges from counsellors' reports of presenting and predominant issues. This suggests that school‐based counsellors should be mindful of clients' particular therapeutic goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The increasing prevalence of mental health issues in young people has contributed to a rise in the provision of school‐based counselling services in the UK. Between 2008/09 and 2010/11, data were collected from users of secondary school‐based counselling services in Wales. Aims: To identify the characteristics of users of school‐based counselling services in Wales – including demographics, referral pathways, presenting issues, and predominant issues – and how they compare to users of specialist CAMHS in Wales and Welsh secondary school pupils in general. Method: Data were collected on 10,687 episodes of counselling. School counsellors completed a client record sheet after each counselling episode and submitted these to their Local Authority. Collated results were then compared to matched data from Welsh specialist CAMHS and Welsh secondary schools data. Results/findings: A typical user of a secondary school‐based counselling service in Wales was female, of white ethnicity, and from the ‘middle’ school years. There was a marked under‐representation of users from BME backgrounds. Users were most often referred by school staff, and the most common presenting issues were family‐related, anger, and behaviour‐related. Conclusions: There was a higher proportion of females accessing school‐based counselling services than males. This was in direct contrast to data from specialist CAMHS and possible explanations for this are discussed. The under‐representation of BME populations suggested that there were some equality issues associated with accessing these services. Implications for practice: Future research should explore equality issues associated with young people from BME backgrounds accessing intervention services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and aim: There have been several calls for adopting an empirical approach investigating public opinion concerning the differentiation between the professional titles 'counsellor' and 'psychotherapist'. The present research makes a first step to addressing this issue. Method: Sixteen interviewers, recruited across the UK, interviewed 450 members of the public in 57 UK district codes. Age, gender and education were monitored for sampling purposes. Results: The findings indicated that around two thirds of the public perceive the professional title 'counsellor' to be distinct from the professional titles 'psychotherapist' and 'psychological therapist' and for these latter two titles to be almost identical. About one third of the public perceive the opposite trend, and one tenth is undecided whether these professional titles are distinct or indistinct. Conclusion: These results have implications for the debate concerning the structure of the Health Professions Council (HPC) Register in the regulation of counsellors and psychotherapists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]