School Counselling Service

Liber8 offers a pupil counselling service in high schools across Lanarkshire to ensure that young people have quick access to the right kind of interventions when and where they need them. This service focuses on early intervention and prevention in order to improve mental and emotional wellbeing in young people, helping them develop confidence, motivation, resilience and a sense of self-worth. By providing a safe space for pupils to share their worries in a trusted and comfortable environment, we aim to improve their engagement in education and encourage them to partake in healthier, safer activities outside of school.

Our counsellors develop trust-based relationships with young people and foster an effective therapeutic alliance. Using a trauma-informed approach, we can offer a variety of psychological therapies in a school-based setting, including:

One-to-one counselling 
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Person Centred Therapy 
Motivational Interviewing 
Stress management 
Mindfulness 
Psychosocial education 
Solution-Focused Therapy 
Coping and Social Skills Training

This holistic, person-centred service provides a range of meaningful interventions in a supportive environment, which can be tailored to the requirements of every school and each individual circumstance, including:

Pupil counselling during school time and outwith term time. 
Small group therapy sessions. 
Topic-specific workshops, e.g., anxiety, coping skills, etc.
Drop-in times for parents / carers of pupils (with consent). 
Parent / carer appointments, if required, relative to their child’s progress.

The service is also inclusive of family and significant others and aims to engage with families who are particularly difficult to reach. Schools have reported improvements in attendance, behaviour, and attainment of young people who have accessed school-based counselling services, with increased emotional wellbeing correlating with higher levels of engagement. By improving self-esteem, resilience and confidence, school-based counselling provides young people with the tools to play an active, positive role within their family, local community and wider society.

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