This petition is to help students in New Zealand, so many of today's youth need to be able to access mental health care and would greatly benefit from an in school counselor.  In 2018 it was found that 1 in 10 young people (under 24) were having thoughts about harming themselves or considering suicide in the last two weeks. In 15-17 year olds alone, around 5% have moderate or severe depression,  around 15% have moderate or severe anxiety and around 25% have high or very high mental distress.  So many students need to talk to a counselor but can't see them because there is not enough time for the counselor to see everyone so this petition is trying to help those people.

However the current ratio of students enrolled to full time counselors is one full time counselor to every 400 students (0.6 full time hours for schools with under 400 but above 200 students). Given the stats above it is fair to say that 10% of students in schools need some form of counselor and that having a ratio cap means that students are not getting the help that they need. 

We want the government to change the system from the 1:400 ratio to 10% of a school's population having access to a full time counselor at any given time. This will ensure that students who need help are able to access it and will not leave out the smaller schools.