Advanced Guidance Screening (AGS)

Why it matters

Some signals need a closer look than a school-level screening can give. The four instruments in this area are for exactly that point: when the picture suggests something that a counsellor should not be interpreting alone.

When to use it

Only after another measure, a teacher observation or an interview has raised a specific question - never as a routine class-wide screening.

What it distinguishes

Anxiety symptoms from general distress; ruminative thinking from ordinary worry; risk behaviour tendencies from one-off incidents.

Limits

These instruments are administered and interpreted only by a qualified clinical practitioner. Used outside that boundary the result is not merely weaker, it is invalid. Confidentiality, consent and the referral route are settled before administration, not after.