Macao maintained independence over the education system after the handover to the People’s Republic of China in1999. Many changes have ensued in the education system in the past decade or more, most of which relates to theimplementation of school counseling in the local schools. Adopting a phenomenological approach and interviews,this study focused on the perceptions of school-aged youth, parents, and teachers regarding current school-based childand family counseling in schools in Macao. The findings indicate an overall positive attitude and openness to schoolcounseling and mental health services, and general agreement amongst informants for more professional resourcesand broader access to services. In view of the findings, I conclude with a recommendation for transforming schoolbasedchild and family counseling in Macao through following more integrated prevention and intervention servicesproposed by the School-Based Family Counseling (SBFC) model to address the most salient needs of children/youth,families, and teachers in the school setting and community.


Acknowledgements
A special note of thank you to my students in the third year school psychology course for collecting the data for thisproject, and for assisting with the transcripts and analyses of the textual data.

Corresponding Author
Gertina J. van Schalkwyk, Department of Psychology, University of Macau,
Avenida da Universidade, Taipa, Macau S.A.R., The People's Republic of China.
Email: gjvs@umac.mo