Guidance and Counselling
Cambridge High School (CHS) believes in providing Pastoral care for students which supports them to develop and achieve their potential intellectually, socially and emotionally.
The Guidance Faculty aims to provide support that will:
Foster personal, social and intellectual wellbeing,
Strive to help you be successful in your life,
Assist you in developing more resourceful ways to manage problems,
Support you in navigating your relationships with others,
Sustain you in your identity development.
Counselling
Counselling is for anyone who wants to talk to someone about working through life’s challenges or who wants to make changes to some part of their life.
The counselling relationship is one that is caring, positive and built on mutual respect.
We believe that the choice to come to counselling is yours. If someone is concerned about you, they may ask you to see us, but the choice to be involved in counselling is yours to make.
We can also refer you and your whaanau to other counsellors with specific skills as well as other community agencies if it is appropriate.
Counsellors @CHS
We have a team of three qualified counsellors who each have membership with NZAC. Our individual counselling rooms can be found in the Guidance area (p11).
Mrs Amy James
Head of Department / Counsellor
email: ajs@camhigh.school.nz
Mrs Zara Tester
Counsellor
email: ztr@camhigh.school.nz
Confidentiality
Counselling at CHS is a confidential service. Our counsellors abide by the NZAC Code of Ethics, this means that the counsellors at CHS treat communication between you and the counsellor as confidential.
Your conversations with a counsellor remain confidential unless there is imminent and serious risk for your safety, or the safety of others. If/when this happens, we will do our best to speak with you about the concern and discuss the situation with you.
In cases such as this, only necessary information will be shared with those responsible for your safety and wellbeing.
Requesting an Appointment
We encourage you to refer yourself to counselling when you feel the time is right.
When caregivers, friends and school staff feel a student has a counselling need and would like to request an appointment for them, it is our hope that, whenever possible, the student is consulted and involved in this process.
We receive all requests for appointments via our online referral form which submits responses directly and confidentially to our counsellors.
You can access our referral form using the following link: CHS Counselling Referral Form.
Helpful Contacts
The following are some helpful contacts if you need support outside of school time:
In an emergency
call 111
Need to talk?
text or call 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor 24/7
Youthline
text 234 or call 0800 376 633
Suicide Crisis Line
0508 828 865
Depression Line
0800 111 757
Alcohol and Drug Helpline
0800 787 797
Family Violence info line
0800 456 450
Health line
0800 611 116
Lifeline Aotearoa nationwide
0800 543 354
Outline
LGBTIQ - affirming support line and face to face counselling
0800 688 5463
Anxiety phone line
0800 269 4389