Wondered how many people read the article in today's Sunday Age (September 5th) challenging the legitimacy of school chaplains? Now I have met a lot of school Chaplains in my time and some were superb and some were not. There is no doubt that spirituality is an important protective factor in the lives of young people and that some research exists to suggest it is an important component of resilient young people. I therefore have always believed that the existence of a Chaplain is an added extra to any school. However, I do not believe that a Chaplain can do the same job as a psychologist and I would hate to think that some schools are opting for the sake of saving money, for a Chaplain to do the same job as that would be insane.
The following point need to be made:
1. In an ideal world every school should have a psychologist who is properly trained
2. The reality is that many schools can't afford them
3. The Howard Government erred in making money available for Chaplains not psychologists in the first place (but presumably did so because chaplains were cheap)
4. Given the overwhelming evidence that the mental health of young people is getting worse, we need to reconsider the policy
5. in the meantime, there should be a major push on ensuring that chaplains are properly trained and screened.
Perhaps the independents could have a word in the PM's ear.
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3 comments:
Chaplains are not the answer
Serious questions arise when Labor promises to extend Howard’s funding of chaplains across government and religious schools to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Under the current National School Chaplaincy Program (NSCP), schools are happily pocketing the handout of public money without regards to the details of what their onsite chaplain is really doing there.
Religious duties aside, these well meaning individuals aren’t qualified and yet they are independently counseling schoolchildren with mental health issues. These aren’t professionals receiving ongoing training, and they’re operating without the supporting structure and formal oversight mandatory for psychologists.
The Australian Psychological Society’s recent NSCP report (available online) warns us that chaplains are “alarmingly” ineffective at referring students to specialist assistance and that “the risks to both students and schools are immense and will ultimately result in significant costs both financial and human.”
We should not be accepting chaplains as a cheap and convenient short-term option. These are our children – Australian children that deserve the best we can provide.
Labor ought to immediately scrap this chaplaincy program and redirect the funding to a responsible, evidence-based, and religiously neutral alternative.
If in an ideal world every school would have a suitably trained and experienced psychologist, then why don't we have them?
Perhaps people like yourself should be pushing the government to stop wasting money on untrained chaplains and put that money towards trained psychologists.
Your continued pandering to the NSCP is not helping. Chaplains do NOT belong in our schools, their place is in their churches.
You are in a far greater position to do something about it than I am so why don't you? See this link:
http://statereligionvic.posterous.com/open-letter-to-dr-michael-carr-gregg
I objected to chaplains being introduced to my daughters school, as did many other parents, but one was introduced anyway based on a lie about community support.
I joined the chaplaincy committee, which wasn't formed until 6 months after the chaplain was already on campus recruiting young girls into 'Shine' and going on camps. I had to argue with the head of student services to get them to agree on record that the chaplain was not an appropriate 'first line' for children with problems that needed to be referred to the school councillors. Despite this the chaplain and administration direct kids with trouble to the chaplain first.
Get these proselytisers out of our schools now!
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