College guidance and counselling staff aim to provide students, families, and staff with the guidance and support they need to lead healthy, fulfilling, productive, and responsible lives. 

We strive to meet the educational, emotional, career, social, and spiritual needs of our students. 

Emergencies

If you, or someone you care about is in crisis, and need immediate assistance or are in an emergency situation, please call Triple Zero – 000.

If you suspect a person under the age of 18 years is at risk of harming themselves, please present to Queensland Children’s Hospital where the Acute Response Team operates 24 hours. You can also call the Child and Youth Mental Health Service Acute Response Team on 3068 2555. 

If you suspect a young person is at risk of being abused or neglected, please contact the Child Safety After Hours Team on 1800 177 135.

If you require crisis support, please call the Youth Beyond Blue on 1300 55 1800 or Child Youth Mental Health Service (CYMHS) on 13 11 14.

Family Resources Headspace support young people who are going through a tough time to help get them back on track. Their vision is to improve young people's mental, social, and emotional wellbeing.

Access resources from Headspace.

Common Reasons to Access Counselling

Common reasons for student referrals to access counselling include:

• Mood concerns that impact classroom engagement such as anxiety and depression.
• Challenging behaviours or a theme of poor behavioural choices.
• Support with repairing peer relationships.

A family therapy session is offered with student referrals.

This approach seeks to support parents and carers to address concerns relating to, but not limited to, general adolescent defiance in the home environment, oppositionality to attend to homework tasks, school refusal, addictions (including excessive screen usage), and parenting skills.

Referrals

Appointments can be made online through via Student Café or Parent Lounge. Alternatively, please contact the college counsellor directly:

Ms Ines Lagundzic
College Counsellor
P: 3230 8616
E: ilagundzic@stjamescollege.qld.edu.au

Publications Arising from Clinical Practice at St James

Wiseman, M., & O’Gorman, S. (2019). School based responses to non-suicidal self-injury and suicide: Literature considerations when framing a policy response. eJournal of Catholic Education in Australasia.

Wiseman, M., & O’Gorman, S. (2018). A manualised approach to anger management in a group therapy context: Striving towards accessibility, inclusivity and affordability within mainstream schools. Pastoral Care in Education.

O’Gorman, S. (2019). A multi-staged conceptualisation of engagement of students with a history of school refusal. Psychology and Education Journal: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

O’Gorman, S. (2017). The case for integrating trauma informed family therapy clinical practice within the school context. British Journal of Guidance and Counselling.

Wiseman, M., & O’Gorman, S. (2017). Seeking refuge: Implications when integrating refugee and asylum seeker students into a mainstream Australian school. Discourse and Communication for Sustainable Education, vol. 8(1), pp. 53-63.

Wiseman, M., & O’Gorman, S. (2017). First things first: Anger management group work in a mainstream high school setting. Pastoral Care in Education, 35(2), 124-136.