This article presents New Zealand school counsellors' narratives of counselling adolescents from a strength-based perspective. Strength-based counselling encompasses several counselling modalities including positive psychology, narrative and solution-focused brief counselling and promotes adolescents' strengths to enhance wellbeing. Using…

Truancy is a longstanding, unresolved educational issue in countries where there are compulsory attendance policies. It represents a long-term cost to society in expenditure on health, well-being and incarceration. Previous research has focused on key demographic variables related to truancy, causal factors, interventions and a variety of…

An extensive international literature now supports the potential of parental involvement (PI) for improving children's academic achievements and social outcomes. This research also suggests that involvement which schools organize themselves is more effective than externally imposed PI programmes. It is therefore important to investigate PI…

The International School Psychology Survey (ISPS) was used to gather information about New Zealand educational psychologists' characteristics, training, roles, activities, preferences, research interests and the challenges they experienced in their work. The results of this survey were considered in relation to the social and cultural context of…

Counselors sometimes struggle with professional challenges, a situation that can be more difficult with a lack of support among colleagues. Finding an alternative community of support can make a crucial difference for well being. Recommendations are drawn from kinship networks of the Maoris of New Zealand to demonstrate how they can serve as a…

Describes the process by which two school psychologists changed roles from providers of direct services to high school students to providers of indirect services to teachers. Four phases followed in the change to a consultation role are described. Implications for training of school psychologists in consultation are discussed. (NRB)