Counseling
The Counselor works to support the community in nourishing mentally and emotionally healthy kids and families.
The San Francisco School offers our students the support of a professional school counselor, working directly primarily with 4th-8th Grades and serving as a resource for younger grades. The school counselor’s role is to support the academic, personal, and social development of our students and to provide guidance to families and school personnel to assist our students in being successful and happy. The school counselor promotes a positive, safe, and supportive learning environment and helps address personal and social risk factors for students. Through this process, the school counselor may identify student challenges or problems in their earliest stages and recommend or implement prevention and intervention strategies.
The school counselor does not provide psychological counseling or therapy or diagnosis to students, even though the school counselor may have training in those areas. Instead, if the school counselor concludes that a student may benefit from therapeutic intervention, the school counselor will discuss options with the student’s parent(s)/guardian(s) to access outside therapy services. For students 12 years or older, the school counselor may discuss options for services directly with the student.
The school counselor meets with individual students or groups of students as needed. To access counseling services, students may contact the counselor themselves or they may be referred by school personnel, family members, or other students. Students under age 12 must have the consent of a parent or guardian to receive counseling services, while students age 12 or older do not need parental consent to receive services.
The school counselor will maintain the confidentiality of information a student shares except where the student agrees or where disclosure to other school personnel or the student’s care providers or family is necessary to accomplish the purposes of the counseling or to ensure the safety of the student or others. The school counselor will not disclose information, even to a student’s parent(s)/guardian(s) if doing so would put the student at risk of harm. The school counselor is a mandated reporter, so the school counselor is required by law to report suspected child abuse or neglect to child protective services or law enforcement.
