Students bring their whole lives to school — including anxiety, low mood, grief, family trouble, and sometimes substance use. Teachers see it first and are asked to handle it, without clinical training and on top of everything else they do. Safe Places works with schools so that neither students nor staff are left to manage alone.

What we deliver in schools

Counselling for students and staff. Students can be counselled directly, within the consent structure described below. Teachers and other staff can receive confidential counselling of their own — a struggling staff room shapes struggling classrooms.

Where a Safe Places counsellor is placed at the school, sessions happen there. Other schools can arrange appointments at Kyambogo or group-based outreaches. If an individual concern arises during an outreach, the visiting team follows it up. Staff counselling runs on the same footing as our workplace counselling — sessions are private, and the school learns nothing without the staff member’s consent, within the professional and legal limits that apply to all our work.

Substance screening. Screening programmes using standardised tools, run with the school and designed as a route to support rather than punishment. Students always know when they are being screened.

Each programme is designed with school leadership and administered by our clinical team, at the school or at our Kyambogo centre. Results are handled confidentially on a need-to-know basis — never posted or announced — and every programme includes a support pathway, so a student whose result raises concern is met with assessment and counselling rather than a verdict. The clinical service itself is described on our drug and substance screening page.

Referral when more is needed. Where a student’s difficulty goes beyond what school-based support should carry, we help arrange the next step — described honestly below.

When a student needs treatment, not just support

School-based counselling is support, not clinical treatment, and severity determines the line between them. Where assessment shows a student needs treatment, that step is taken only with the consent of the parents or guardians. Depending on what the student needs, treatment can happen through our out-patient service or through referral to specialist child and adolescent services. The school is not the patient’s clinician, and we keep those roles distinct.

Starting a conversation

Every school is different, so engagements begin with a conversation about yours: the size of the school, what prompted the enquiry, and what kind of support would fit. From there we agree the shape of the work with school leadership and the consent structure with parents.

Call +256 770 700944 or email info@safeplacesuganda.com and mention your school. Organisations and institutions can also reach our partnerships officer on +256 709 266549.