Learners will not attend to their academic goals if their fundamental pastoral care needs are not sufficiently supported. The Centre for Languages at Wintec therefore established in 2011 an academic counsellor role to support the pastoral care needs of students, and currently caters for over 500 international and domestic students from more than 30 countries, aged between 16 and 65.
In this presentation, the Centre’s two current and previous academic counsellors discuss how the academic counsellor role functions at Wintec, its frames of reference, how it was established, key policies and procedures, and the collaborative network of support services within the institution and wider community that provide support to students. In promoting wider adoption of this model, a number of key considerations are highlighted and recommendations are provided for how to ensure that pastoral care resources and processes remain focused on successful outcomes for students.