SCHOOL COUNSELLORS' STRATEGIES AND CHALLENGES IN SUPPORTING STUDENTS' MENTAL HEALTH IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KERICHO COUNTY, KENYA

School counselling is an important dimension of school-based support for students' psychosocial and mental health. Their capacity to address students' mental health needs, however, might be affected by workload, time, resources, professional development, institutional support, and students' views on counselling. The study was conducted to identify some of the problems school counsellors face to respond to students' mental health needs in the senior secondary schools in Kericho County, Kenya. Person-Centered Theory and Ecological Systems Theory guided the study and a convergent parallel mixed methods research design was used. A structured questionnaire was used to collect quantitative data from 68 school counsellors and key informant interviews were conducted with seven purposively selected principals and deputy principals to collect qualitative data. Both quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviation in SPSS version 30 and thematically respectively. The results obtained revealed a composite mean of 3.10 (SD = 1.17) which represented an average score close to the neutral point (3) of the five-point scale used to indicate the respondents' overall perception of the assessed challenges. The specific indicators recorded the highest mean (M) scores, with insufficient counselling time (M = 3.22, SD = 1.22), followed by inadequate counselling resources (M = 3.15), stigma associated with seeking counselling (M = 3.15), and lack of continuous professional training (M = 3.15). The mean score for inadequate referrals was the lowest score (M = 2.87, SD = 1.04). Qualitative results added contextual evidence of heavy workload, counselling time limitations, lack of resources, lack of professional development and stigma. The results highlight that School Counsellors face a set of interconnected operational level, professional and socio-cultural issues, with the extent of these issues being different for the various respondents and for the various school contexts. The study suggests that counselling time be protected, staffing and resources be increased, ongoing professional development be enhanced, and the stigma associated with school counselling be mitigated.