As the pressures on young people grow, the work of the guidance counsellor is getting more sensitive - and more demanding. In addition to careers and academic advice, a guidance counsellor must listen and provide professional support - not easy when you're responsible for the welfare of 500 pupils.

Breaking down borders is the major theme of a conference which will be attended by hundreds of guidance counsellors in Letterkenny, Co Donegal, later this week.

For parents and students, it is perhaps not what comes to mind when they think of the guidance counsellors they meet in schools and colleges. Yet guidance counselling is about more than simply telling people what jobs they should do, says Brian Mooney, president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, which is organising the conference.

One area where guidance counsellors have a real contribution to make is in their role as qualified counsellors, he says. Indeed, people are not always aware that this forms such an important part of their work.

"Our qualification is in counselling, as well as in careers. . . Effectively, our job is there in terms of ensuring our students can make a transition through life," he says.

"And one of the concerns I have is when you see other people in the school system, who are not qualified counsellors, thinking that they are good listeners, that they have another role, and that they can take on counselling. Counselling is a very serious business; when you open somebody up, you better know what you are doing."

Central to a guidance counsellor's role in schools is, nevertheless, academic and career guidance. It is absolutely vital, says Mooney, that students are helped to make the right subject choices for them. The student who decides to do pass Irish at Junior Certificate, for example, could be ruling themselves out of a career as a primary teacher, he says. Equally, if they choose pass maths, they may be ruling out engineering in the future.

Yet guidance counsellors find themselves in a somewhat curious position within the school hierarchy. Although the vast majority are either former teachers, or continue to teach on a part-time basis, they are neither a member of the school management, nor always seen as full members of the teaching staff.

"A lot of teachers in the staff-room are wondering 'what the hell does that guy do anyway?"' and you can't go in and talk about your work, because much of it is confidential," says Mooney. "If you are in a situation where some kid comes in to you and they are addressing issues of concern to them, inevitably from time to time issues come up which relate to a colleague." This can, he admits, sometimes give rise to a degree of tension between teaching staff and guidance counsellors.

"You're walking a tightrope the whole time. . . You have to tell the student as they walk through the door that, effectively, this is a voluntary process, that it is utterly confidential unless they disclose something to you which endangers their life or somebody else's life. Now you've got to determine what's life-endangering."

But given the fact that the issue of under performing teachers has come to the fore in recent years, would Mooney have any concerns that some of his members might be providing the wrong advice to pupils trying to chart their way in life? And are there mechanisms in place to ensure guidance counsellors are doing their job well? Understandably, he immediately points to the fact that a recent OECD report, to which he contributed, showed that Ireland ranks among the best in the world in terms of its provision of guidance counselling. A guidance counsellor can also expect to be inspected about every four to five years, he adds.

However, the key to maintaining this standard, he believes, is by giving guidance counsellors the opportunity to take part in in-service training.

"Our own research has shown that there is 100 per cent attendance at in-service training by our members. Most would also be prepared to get involved outside school hours as well. So guidance counsellors are both attending in-service and prepared to sacrifice their own time," he says.

Depsite the OECD report, however, he says guidance counsellors here face a continuing struggle to provide the standard of guidance they would like. In 1983, there was one guidance counsellor allocated to every 250 students at a school. The fact that this has risen to one for every 500 has severely impacted on his members' ability to do their jobs, he says.

"If a school goes below 500 pupils, then you only are allowed 0.5 per cent of a teacher. So, then, someone who was working full-time as a counsellor also has to go and take on classes as well," he says. "We're a threadbare service, given that our resources were cut in half 20 years ago. . . The answer is to bring the quota back to 250, like it was in 1985. If we could afford it then, we can afford it now."

If providing guidance counselling in schools has certain problems, then giving guidance to adults also offers its own set Of challenges, according to Andrea McCarthy of the Adult Educational Guidance Association.

While progress has been made in the area of adult career guidance since the publication of the White Paper on Education in 2000, it is still very much in its infancy here, she believes.

"It's really about seeing the adult from a holistic perspective," she says. " It's not just about 'there's a course, and there you go'. Adults have so many responsibilities, whatever they decide on has to fit in with their lives."

Many adults who might be considering re-entering education face significant obstacles, including transport costs and insufficient childcare provision, she says.

Another consideration is that some adults, particularly those who may have left school early, require extra encouragement to take the first steps on the road to furthering their education.

"Some will be brave enough to knock on your door," says McCarthy, "but guidance counsellors need to go out into communities and sit people down, have a coffee with them maybe. . . we're here to progress adults, and help them move forward."

And at a time when Ireland has assumed the presidency of the EU, the work of people such as McCarthy will ultimately be crucial to achieving the aims of the so-called Lisbon Strategy, says Mooney.

"You shouldn't need to be unemployed to walk into a FÁS office and say 'I want to have another job. What do I do, where do I go, what skills do I need?' What we should have is a guidance support structure that deals with people who are thinking about changing.

"How do you become a competitive economy? You become a competitive economy by ensuring that every citizen gets the opportunity to maximise their potential. And how do you do that? You do it through a guidance system, which is what the adult guidance people are doing," he says.

"The guidance system can enhance the person as well as enhancing the economy. As you enhance people, you enhance economies. And my concern is the enhancement of people."

The Institute of Guidance Counsellors' annual conference take place in

Letterkenny, Co Donegal, this weekend