On school chaplains

I’ve red a lot of anger in the last week or so about the school chaplaincy program, and I feel I need to wade into this debate with a different (maybe more experienced, maybe more biased) opinion. 

A few facts about me to start:
1. I teach in a government school in Victoria that has a school chaplain (and a nurse, and a whole team of welfare people).
2. I was raised Anglican but am not religious at all any more (although my mother still teaches RE in primary schools).
3. My cousin is also a chaplain in the Victorian government school that I attended as a kid (one of Bill Shortens “bush fire chaplains” actually) 

I think my perspective on this is a really different one to most people (or at least most Twitter people). What caused me to write this now, after all the anger this week, was this tweet “what if a gay student is depressed and the advice is “get cured by Jesus”” as well as a woman on what I think was the 7pm project, saying that “anyone can get kids to talk they need trained individuals to guide them, not chaplains”. I think these two things quite concisely summarise the oppositions to chaplains. That they are forcing god onto students and denying them access to trained counsellors. 

No. They’re not. Not from my experience anyway. If a depressed gay kid came to any of the chaplains I know it will be because this kid feels comfortable talking to that person and opening up about those things. None of the chaplains I know are going to even mention god. They’re going to listen, they’re going to report it to SWC (student welfare committee) and the school psychologist. They’re going to act in their role as an adult who is not an authoritarian figure and is just going to listen to them. Which for most kids is what they really need. The kids I know that respond most to the school chaplains are the ones that don’t have much of a father figure, who are beaten at home, who have no support network. They need someone to talk to who they feel isn’t going to try and tell them what to do. 

The kids at the schools of the two chaplains I know don’t even know that these people are religiously affiliated. They’re not talking about god. They’re not trying to change or heal the kids though religion, they’re listening, they’re supporting, they’re being someone else a kid can talk to. They’re working with kids at risk to identify problems they might have so they can be referred on to someone with more experience. They’re trained in restorative practices, circle time and restorative justice better than I am and they help run those programs. They get in guest speakers to talk about depression, and suicide and girls problems and boys problems though the greater network of welfare support that schools have. At the moment our school chaplain is getting a program called “One Ocean” up and running to target disengaged and uninterested boys from Tonga, Samoa and Maori New Zealanders, some of my schools new student intake and the mist likely to truant and not complete year 12. It will involve rugby, as well as making links between their culture and their new culture. 2x75 minute sessions over 8 weeks. My question is to people who say their should be trained counsellors instead of chaplains: could a counsellor do that? Would they? Having spent my weekend having counseling training as part of my Masters I know the counsellors I was learning from wouldn’t. They would just “refer them on”. But someone needs to be in school to run the program! (oh, and one of the student leaders in the One Ocean program? He’s been assessed by the psychologist, he’s seeing a counsellor but mainly, he has a shit home life and wants to talk to someone. And he seeks out our chaplain) 

Should schools have the choice to employ a Youth Worker instead of a chaplain? Yes, I think this is the best way to change the program, as the chaplains I know have also done training and qualifications in Youth Work. But I’ll also say this that I several of my fellow Masters students were Youth Workers and their qualifications are in teaching like mine. And they’re working with really disaffected youth. 

But I just think that people are hearing “god” “ministries” and “chaplains” and are reacting without first finding out the roles that these people play within a greater school community. Because, honestly, a whole lot more preaching about god comes from super religious teachers than it does from the chaplains