School counselling is a well-established means of supporting the mental health of children. Counsellors are most effective when they collaborate with parents, so it is important that parents have a good understanding of and access to school counselling services. Despite this, little is known about parents’ perceptions of counselling in Hong Kong schools. We interviewed 27 parents in Hong Kong to investigate how they perceived the counselling services provided by their children’s local and international schools, and analysed the data thematically. International school parents recognised the potential of school counselling as a means of support for their children and wanted to work more closely with counsellors to a greater extent than local school parents. Parents were confused about the roles of counsellors and experienced stigma and concerns about confidentiality which inhibited them from engaging with counselling services. Our findings suggest that school principals should work with counsellors to establish and communicate roles more clearly. Greater recognition of counsellors’ professionalism, and clearer role differentiation between counsellors and other mental health and educational professionals may improve parental engagement with and support for school counselling. Copyright © 2023 NAPCE.

A strong professional identity is associated with the provision of more effective counselling services. In Hong Kong, however, the role of school counsellors is poorly defined, not well differentiated from those of other educational and mental health professions, and not supported by licensing and minimum qualification requirements. Consequently, school counsellors perform marginalised roles in schools which do not draw effectively on their competencies. Professional bodies that support the development of school counselling do exist but are not well established. If counsellors are to be effective, they need to establish an identity that recognises their unique contribution and locates them clearly in relation to other professions in a culturally appropriate way. They should also occupy positions in schools, which are characterised by collaboration with stakeholders and the ability to influence policy. Professional bodies are well placed to advocate for these changes in the context of the local sociocultural environment and should take a lead in advocating for a more robust professional identity. Copyright © 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.