School Counsellor

Job Description

Children, Education & Justice Services

School Counsellors
City-wide

Salary: £30,751 - £36,312 per year
Hours: see below

29 hours per week Tynecastle & St Thomas of Aquin's
21.5 hours per week Westerhailes & Drummond

Candidates may have the option to add an additional day in another school cluster.

We are looking to appoint appropriately skilled individuals to the post of School Counsellor in Edinburgh Schools. This is part of our exciting citywide initiative to provide counselling through all our schools. The post holder will be based within Westerhailes Community High School, Tynecastle, Drummond or St Thomas of Aquin’s High schools and will also have a role offering counselling to pupils aged 10 years or over in the associated primary schools

The successful candidate will work with the secondary school and it’s associated primary schools to oversee the effective delivery of counselling services to 10 to 18 year olds within the school learning community. The counsellor will be line managed by the school but will also regularly link with the counselling co-ordinator to ensure appropriate levels of supervision are undertaken and to work within the citywide strategy for counsellors in schools.

School Counsellors are part of the wider pupil support team and will support the child planning process within the national GIRFEC framework. They are integrated into the whole school approach to emotional health and wellbeing and work in partnership with the wider school team and other key partners.

School Counsellors work with their schools and the counselling co-ordinator to agree and provide appropriate levels of counsellor contact during school holidays.

Successful candidates will be fully qualified counsellors and registered with an appropriate organisation such as COSCA or the BACP.

This post is regulated work with children and/or protected adults under the Protection of Vulnerable Groups (Scotland) Act 2007. The preferred candidate will be required to join the PVG Scheme or undergo a PVG Scheme update check.  Where an individual has spent a continuous period of 3 months or more out with the UK in the last 5 years, an Overseas Criminal Record Check will be required. You will be required to provide this check. An unconditional offer of employment and commencement in the post will be subject to the outcome of both these pre-employment checks being deemed satisfactory.

As part of our goal to improve our organisational culture and create a great place to work together for the people of Edinburgh, we want to make sure that we’re bringing the best people into our roles, not just in their skills and experience but also in their approach to work.

To help achieve this, we’re changing the way we interview and assess candidates by moving from a competency-based interview approach to a behavioural and technical (skills for the job) based approach. This new way of interviewing will allow us to assess how you think and how you would bring Our Behaviours of Respect, Integrity and Flexibility into your ways of working.

We're committed to creating a workplace culture where all our people feel valued, included and able to be their best at work, and we recognise the benefits that a diverse workforce with different values, beliefs, experience, and backgrounds brings to us as an organisation.

Our salary range typically reflects the initial starting salary and annually increases until it reaches the top of the range.

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