Sexual harm, bullying and suicide: The mounting pressure on school counsellors

Saturday, 14 February 2026

During the years Carla King was a student guidance counsellor, she says she saw it all.

From pornography to sexual harm, abuse and domestic violence, “you name it”, she says. “We have unwell parents who are trying to support an unwell student … families that are stressed in all different areas; poverty, drugs, alcohol, immigration, all of that.”

As she approached 12 years in the job in 2024, working across primary, intermediate and secondary schools mainly in South Auckland, she made the difficult decision to resign.

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King loved working with youth and saw the desperate need for support – as well as the importance of supporting staff surrounding young people.

But she needed to step away, finding herself “absolutely burnt out”.

“Just the sheer workload, the level of risk we carry, the lack of support for those young people who are experiencing suicidal ideation or sexual harm.

“There is such complexity to the work we do, yet we're just not supported enough in schools.”

King is one of an unknown number of guidance counsellors who have worked, or are currently working, in schools without a teacher background.

Like King, many instead have qualifications and degrees in counselling, psychology and social work.

Guidance counsellors who are registered and certificated teachers are employed under the relevant Teacher Collective Agreement, while others are on an individual employment agreement, meaning their pay is determined by the school board based on the employee’s experience and qualifications.

Negotiations have been ongoing with the Government to have those who are not teacher trained covered under a collective agreement.

NZEI Te Riu Roa national secretary Stephanie Mills said it has not been able to ratify an agreement for support staff that includes any guidance counsellors, “but it looks like the Ministry of Education will agree to that expansion of coverage”.

Even in that case, a non-teacher certified counsellor is likely to be paid less than a teacher.

MOE schools policy general manager Jennifer Fraser said the ministry does not know how many guidance counsellors are registered teachers or not.

But those in the workforce say fewer teachers are stepping into the role and the disparity between the employment conditions is stark. The salary is lower and sometimes only paid during term time.

Primary and secondary schools are funded to provide guidance to students as part of their core staffing entitlement, which could be used to employ guidance counsellors, Fraser says. Schools with Years 9 to 13 students also receive additional guidance staffing, which totalled 995.3 FTTEs (full-time teacher equivalents) in 2025.

“As self-governing entities, schools have the flexibility to determine how best to use this staffing allocation. They also have the flexibility to use their operational grant to employ guidance counsellors.“

In the meantime, demand has increased for counsellors nationwide and the issues they are dealing with more complex, King says.

There is significant research on the effectiveness of school counselling, including an ERO (Education Review Office) review in 2024 which found a majority of students reported sustained improvements to their mental health three months after starting counselling.

A pilot programme for counselling in school has also so far proven to help with emotional distress.

“Yet we still find ourselves in this situation where schools are fighting, scrambling for money.”

The challenges and rewards of being a guidance counsellor

The average ratio in Aotearoa is one counsellor to 670 students.

Meanwhile, the American Counselling Association recommends a counsellor to student ratio of one to 250 and the New Zealand Association of Counsellors is calling for one to 400.

But *Tim, a guidance counsellor in the East Coast, faces 950 students with just another part-time staff member.

His work prior was in child and adolescent mental health, often in the emergency department doing crisis assessment.

He would manage young people who had overdosed every day but “managing that sort of stuff wasn’t a problem”, he says.

Stepping onto school grounds eight years ago however, he found the volume of work “incredible, really”.

“At any one time there'd be at least 60 or 70 people that you have some sort of contact with.”

As a guidance counsellor, his role is to provide support for low-level mental health issues – managing relationships and low mood. But with a stretched mental health system, it has become increasingly common to deal with more severe cases as referrals are declined, falling back on guidance counsellors.

Even if a referral is accepted, it is the counsellors who manage the risk while students are left waiting – and even with problems that might seem relatively minor, the impact on students can be “huge” and create increased risk.

The issues students experience are increasingly complex including anxiety, impacts of social media, sexual harm and self harm.

In a survey of NZ Association of Counsellors (NZAC) members last year, the top three drivers of demand for counsellors were anxiety and stress, followed by trauma and PTSD, then family and relationships.

With Aotearoa having one of highest rates of youth suicide among OECD countries, the loss of a young person is something that has impacted most school communities, Tim says.

“You've just got to be vigilant about everything which is the challenge in a lot of ways.”

Tim also wants to see employment conditions improve to help retain people. He has had job offers which vary by $20,000 and which only pay during the school term.

Young people having better awareness and the language to talk about mental health is positive but it also means “more knocks on the door”, he says.

Despite its challenges, the ability to have a close relationship with people for an extended period of time is rewarding, he says.

“I think it’s a rare resource these days because a lot of the funding models are for real short specific periods of time.”

Being in the school environment every day, sometimes it is a quick 5-minute chat that can stop things from escalating.

“Without that, by the time it reaches the threshold where someone else would accept a referral, things are whole bunch worse.”

A workforce under pressure

NZAC president Huhana Pene says burnout is a serious issue across the workforce.

Halving its current recommendation for for the ratio of counsellor to student to one to 200 would better look after the health and wellbeing of the workforce, she says.

An average two to three-week waiting list to see a counsellor reflects the demand on services.

However, there is a problem in trying to increase the number of counsellors ‒ while there is a growing number of students wanting to join the profession, there are “more students than we have available placements”.

The high case load for counsellors means they don’t have time to provide the level of guidance and supervision required and it is an area NZAC is looking to address, Pene says.

About 20% of its 3500 members work in schools and guidance counsellors play an integral role in providing a safe space for young people to offload issues that surround their lives.

Recent extreme weather events also contribute to the complex trauma young people experience, Pene says.

Funding cuts to NGOs have impacted guidance counsellors’ jobs. Their stress and risk of burnout has increased in the face of added difficulties getting referrals for students in need of further help.

“It's imperative that our schools have support from their local organisations who wrap around those extra services for our families, for the young people.”

Pene also believes more focus is required in primary and intermediate schools because issues only become more complex.

Tute Mila, principal of Arakura School in Wainuiomata, agrees that prioritising funding for primary schools would make prevention and early intervention work much more effective.

In 2023, the school lost its free twice-weekly social worker visits as part of Barnardos’ Social Workers in Schools (SWiS)​ service after a change to Oranga Tamariki’s funding.

The only way to fund a counsellor in primary school is through the school itself, Mila says.

“By the time kids go to secondary, it’s significantly harder, if not too late.”

The impacts of social media

*Isabel notices the increase in anxiety since Covid-19 and the reliance on social media among the young students she works with.

The guidance counsellor at an East Coast girls’ school says the anxiety can result in absenteeism as “students just don’t want to go to school”.

While social media can increase a sense of connection and belonging, it can also expose young people to unrealistic standards, Isabel says.

She regularly hears of students being pressured into taking nude photos which are then shared around school, and worries about their exposure to pornography and influencers who promote harmful views about gender and power, such as Andrew Tate.

“These spaces can normalise sexual violence and misogyny and unhealthy relationship dynamics and that significantly impacts on how young people understand consent, respect and intimacy.”

But it is also the lack of boundaries between an online and offline world and the impact on young people’s sleep that really bother her.

Social media creates a “need to be responsive and be there for friends 24 hours a day”, she says.

She sees the impact it has on self esteem, body image, and heightened anxiety as well as students’ ability to concentrate in class and regulate their emotions.

“If you're tired, you're going to overreact and get upset.

“On a daily basis, I have conversations with students about sleeping and then eating. Getting those basics right is key to your mental health.”

She wants to see much better wraparound support in schools, including improved access to school nurses, sexual health services and social workers.

Education about healthy relationships and consent could also be much more prominent at school, to compete with the volume of harmful content young people may be absorbing each day.

Isabel has “sticky conversations” with students who would be much better suited to speak with other health professionals, as well as wrap-around support for whānau too.

“You’ve got to fill the gaps, so we wear many hats nowadays.”

‘What keeps young people alive’

King would consider going back to school guidance counselling one day – “it’s powerful stuff”, she says.

But right now, she is in a role supporting NZAC members, providing supervision.

Young people tend to want “stuff to disappear” when things are hard, potentially a by-product of instant gratification of social media.

But in such a busy and fast-paced world, having someone who “sits with you, sees you” and makes them feel heard is a therapeutic connection that cannot be overestimated, she says.

“I think that is what keeps young people alive. In my experience, knowing that there's someone there that really cares about them, that thinks about them, no matter what their progress looks like, it is, I think, life saving.”

* Names have been changed to protect employment and privacy