The GESS Student Wellbeing Department was restructured in 2023 to better serve our community through new initiatives and programmes. In addition, we welcomed new members to the team who bring with them valuable expertise and experience. We speak with Cara Lucas, Lead Counsellor, on her work in GESS so far.
Could you introduce yourself, and tell us a bit about how your life in Singapore so far?
My name is Cara, and I started working as GESS’ Lead Counsellor since September 2023. I’m also a mum of two children schooling at GESS – Leo who’s 5 and Ava who is nearly 3 years old. My husband Ben and I love spending time with our kids, and we try to keep Sundays as our family day where we do a fun activity together. We enjoy swimming, going on walks in nature and visiting all the amazing children’s playgrounds around Singapore. I also love reading, yoga and cooking.
I grew up in a small town called Armidale in Australia, before moving to Sydney to study my degrees in Psychology at University. After graduating, I worked in a private practice as a psychologist and found that my passion was working with young people and their families. I felt that I could have a greater impact, as well as see the longer-term effects of the therapeutic interventions if I were to work in a school. I then started work as the Head of Counselling in a private girls’ school in Sydney.
I thoroughly enjoyed this role and gained a lot of experience and insight into the delivery of counselling services and whole school preventative programs within the educational context. This, combined with my passion for travel, led me to successfully apply for a School Psychologist and Deputy Safeguarding Lead role at an international school in Singapore 8 years ago. The team and I were able to transform the wellbeing and safeguarding programs to the point where the school was acknowledged for being the top student wellbeing school in Singapore.
What made you join our GESS family?
When a role came up at GESS, I was very interested as I knew that GESS had an excellent reputation for being a holistic, community based, non-for-profit school. I also felt aligned personally and professionally with the strategic implementation plan, which led me to apply for my current role.
I feel that in the role as a Lead Counsellor I can continue to fulfill my passion of working individually with students and their families, whilst also operating at a strategic level, collaborating with the team in the implementation of whole school wellbeing programmes to ensure that every student benefits from social and emotional learning and has the opportunity to thrive.
We believe you have settled down nicely at GESS. Tell us what is a typical day at work for you?
My work is very varied each day which makes the job exciting and interesting. A typical day would usually start with individual counselling sessions. A student might access counselling for various reasons including anxiety, low mood, friendship difficulties, conflict at home, and many more. These sessions are always private and confidential unless there is risk. Following the session, I may need to speak to a parent or teacher about how they can further support the student, with the student’s permission. I’ll then complete case notes and book the student in for a follow up session as required.
Most days I’ll have meetings with members of the Student Wellbeing Department. These meetings could be around reviewing programmes and planning their implementation. Currently the Counselling Team has been working on further developing the counselling programme which maps out the workshops and initiatives that we run over the year. I’m also a member of the Safeguarding Team and currently working on reviewing and updating the Crisis Response Procedure.
After lunch I may go into classes to run workshops around various social and emotional wellbeing topics including managing stress, coping with change and transitions, developing healthy friendships and many others. In the afternoon I would usually see more students individually and then I would often meet with parents or teachers after school.
You can see that my day is very busy but never boring!
What are some challenges that you encounter in your role at GESS? And how do you overcome them?
There are times when I can receive many referrals at once and I need to do some triaging in terms of the urgency of the needs, or whether the student may benefit more from other types of support.
To overcome this, our Student Wellbeing Department is working to embed the Multi-Tiered System of Support Model (MTSS). This is a schoolwide approach with teachers, counsellors and our team working together to assess students and plan interventions. Through close monitoring and screening of our students, we are able to identify struggling students early and intervene quickly. Based on the students’ need, we can target the intervention, with increasing levels of support for those who are struggling. The MTSS model not only supports students who are at risk, but through a proactive social and emotional learning approach, it can prevent students from needing more targeted support at a later stage and equip all students with the tools required to become the best version of themselves.
What motivates you in your work with children? Is there anything you would have done differently, if given a chance?
My motivation comes from the sense of reward I gain when I see a young person overcome difficulties and begin to thrive. One of the most rewarding aspects about my role as a School Counsellor is that I have the pleasure of seeing first-hand the impact of the interventions over the longer term.
When I consider whether I would have done anything differently in my career, I can honestly answer that I believe I have the best job in the world. Everyday my work is so varied, interesting and engaging and it’s so rewarding working with and supporting young people and their families.
I also love working in a school environment which provides me with a strong sense of community and belonging. Within the counselling team, I have the pleasure of working with very experienced and knowledgeable professionals. We all have different approaches and skills and I gain expertise through collaborating with the team on our shared goal of providing an extraordinary level of care to our students.
The fields of Psychology and School Counselling are very dynamic, and the constant new developments provide me with a steady stream of learning opportunities which I love. I’m lucky that I am supported at GESS to continually engage in professional development so that I can stay up to date with the latest research and evidence-based practice.
How do you see GESS’ commitment and approach to student wellbeing?
I’ve observed that GESS’ commitment and approach to student wellbeing is strongly reflected in how each staff member whom I have connected with genuinely cares so much for the student’s wellbeing.
This is evident to me in our daily interactions with students, how well we know our students and how we go above and beyond to provide support. Our teachers have demonstrated a commitment to contribute to student’s social and emotional learning and support, as they recognise that in order for a young person to achieve academically, they need to be healthy and mentally well. Research also supports this, in that a person’s social and emotional wellbeing is a better predictor of future success than academic outcomes.
GESS has greatly invested in the student wellbeing space, and will continue to do so. Our counselling and safeguarding teams have significantly grown, to where we now have 4 counsellors working across the school, and a new deputy safeguarding lead. The newly opened Student Wellbeing Centre since November 2023 is a student-focused space, encompassing a pod which has been designed as a relaxing space where students can engage in activities to regulate their emotions. This space also includes the counsellors’ offices, accessible by students for support.
Within the school’s 5-year strategic implementation plan, we are working hard to achieve many other goals as we aspire to become a top-tier holistic school.
How has GESS created professional development opportunities for you, to continue dedicating your best to our students?
The Counselling Team and wider Student Wellbeing Department are encouraged to engage in continuous professional development and ongoing training. Since I started at GESS, I have had the opportunity to attend an ASIST Course and following that, a SafeTALK Training for Trainers so that I can facilitate SafeTALK workshops with the GESS community.
During the whole school professional development days, our team engages in our own curated learning programme, where we have clinicians from the wider community come sharing presentations and workshops on a range of therapeutic interventions. This is also a great opportunity for our team to develop strong links with other professionals in the industry, which can help with referral process and ongoing support for our students.
A new initiative for our counselling team is engaging in external individual supervision with a psychologist, where we can confidentially discuss complex cases as well as identify areas within our own practice for development.
We also have the opportunity to attend school counselling conferences where we are able to stay up to date with the latest evidence-based and world’s best practice.
