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Pastoral Care in Education
An International Journal of Personal, Social and Emotional Development
Volume 42, 2024 - Issue 2
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Research Article

“If they talk to the counsellor, at least I know they have some way out”: parents’ perceptions of school counselling in Hong Kong

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Pages 146-165 | Received 13 Feb 2022, Accepted 03 Jul 2023, Published online: 12 Jul 2023
 

ABSTRACT

School counselling is a well-established means of supporting the mental health of children. Counsellors are most effective when they collaborate with parents, so it is important that parents have a good understanding of and access to school counselling services. Despite this, little is known about parents’ perceptions of counselling in Hong Kong schools. We interviewed 27 parents in Hong Kong to investigate how they perceived the counselling services provided by their children’s local and international schools, and analysed the data thematically. International school parents recognised the potential of school counselling as a means of support for their children and wanted to work more closely with counsellors to a greater extent than local school parents. Parents were confused about the roles of counsellors and experienced stigma and concerns about confidentiality which inhibited them from engaging with counselling services. Our findings suggest that school principals should work with counsellors to establish and communicate roles more clearly. Greater recognition of counsellors’ professionalism, and clearer role differentiation between counsellors and other mental health and educational professionals may improve parental engagement with and support for school counselling.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article.

All authors certify that they have no affiliations with or involvement in any organization or entity with any financial interest or non-financial interest in the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Central Research Allocation Fund of The Education University of Hong Kong [Grant number 04A01].

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