Pastoral Counselling Framework

  1. BAC pritoritises the need to provide holistic care for students. Pastoral care is centred around the physical, mental, emotional and social aspects of the student.
  2. Pastoral Support provided by BAC includes:
    1. Providing emotional support for students to help them cope with mental stress relating to a new environment or course demands.
    2. Implementing programmes (i.e. icebreaking activities, community engagement activities, sports and recreational activities, amongst others) to create a culture and climate of care, trust and friendliness that encourage student comradeship, attendance and involvement.
  3. A student may approach any BAC member staff for pastoral support or an BAC member staff may notice that a student may require pastoral support. In such case, the student:
    1. Shall be assessed by the respective staff (i.e. lecturer) to ascertain the seriousness of the student’s situation and refer the person to the appointed Pastoral Counsellor to provide the necessary assistance as best as possible.
    2. Where the situation is still unresolved, the student shall be referred to an external Professional Counsellor. The referral to an external Professional Counsellor will be done within the same day so that a suitable appointment can be fixed.
    3. For students below the age of 18, parents or guardians will be notified by BAC’s Pastoral Counsellor of the necessity for an external Professional Counsellor.
    4. BAC shall closely follow-up with the student and/or parents/guardians and where applicable, the Professional Counsellor on the recovery/developments with the student.
    5. BAC ensures that Pastoral Counsellors attending to the student within BAC have appropriate experience for initial counselling and that external Professional Counsellors are trained and suitably qualified to counsel a student.