Provision of School Based Counselling Service

Descriptions

The School Standards and Organisation Act (Wales) 2013 places a statutory requirement on Local Authorities to provide an independent school based counselling service for children and young people from year 6 of their primary education up to their 19th birthday.

The counselling service will be available to children and young people between the ages of 10 and 19 years (school years 5 to 13). The Service will predominantly be provided on a face to face basis and free of charge to the client at the point of delivery.

The funding available for 2026-27 will be £413k as a minimum, funding partly from core funding and partly from WSA grant funding. The counselling offer would need to minimum of 25 days per week of direct counselling provision to children and young people, term time only and split as follows:

- Minimum of 2 days per week face to face session counselling (and online for EBSA students) in each of the 9 secondary schools (18 days per week total)

- Minimum of 4 days total per week face to face counselling to Y6 pupils across the city, managing a referral system based on highest need.

- Minimum of 1 day per week counselling for the Pupil Referral Unit

- Minimum of 1 day per week counselling for the 2 special schools in Newport.

- Minimum of 1 day a week Community Counselling including online counselling for young people who are EHE and NEET.

- Additional desirable:

- Minimum of 1 day a week play therapy for younger children

- Minimum of 3 days a week to provide face to face counselling to Y5 pupils and under across the city

The funding would also need to include a Clinical Lead to:

- liaise with the Principal EP around the commissioning of the service,

- manage referrals,

- complete WSA grant data and other data requests for Welsh Government,

- line management and supervision of counsellors,

- termly meetings with secondary school wellbeing leads to feedback data on school based counselling,

- Provide support to schools alongside the EPS in the event of a serious critical incident.

Engagement

This pre-market engagement notice is to establish the suppliers in the market who would be interested in providing this service . The Council will also take the opportunity to discuss and improve the current specification. Suppliers are invited to attend individual pre-market engagement meetings on Wednesday 10 December 2025 at the Civic Centre, Newport, NP20 4UR. Suppliers who wish to attend are requested to email joanneclaire.james@newport.gov.uk. Times to attend will be issued no later than 5 December 2025.