The guidance officer as ‘middle ground’ : charting the positioning and positionalities of guidance officers in Queensland schools

Abstract Working at the intersection of student counselling, case management, school-wide wellbeing coordination and support programming, guidance officers assume a specialised presence in schools, maintaining responsibility for some of the most complex and challenging of circumstances in student support. Yet, and despite the responsibilities and quantum of work that guidance officers bear, it occurs that guidance officers typically work individually or in small, specialised teams. Occupying this ‘middle ground’ of specialised practice and close engagement with students generates specific pressures that demonstrate the complexities inherent to guidance work. This paper reports on the viewpoints of a cohort of guidance officers ( n = 13) currently employed in Queensland schools to detail the nature of the roles they fulfil. The paper observes that the guidance officer role could be more meaningfully recognised in contemporary school settings and that potential exists for recognising the specialisation of their practice and the interstitial locations they occupy.