No school psychologist if he has children in the same institution

According to the Lazio Regional Administrative Court (Judgement 8534/2025), the school cannot select as a school psychologist the professional whose child is enrolled at the same school.

The issue in the case concerned the exclusion of a professional from the procedure for the recruitment of a school psychologist by an institute. In the opinion of the Capitoline Administrative Court, in this scenario, the 'concentration' in the same person of both the natural parental function and the therapeutic function following recruitment could have generated a loss of autonomy and independence of the second function and in any case a service that was not genuine and not effective.

In the specific case, the pupils who had relations with the applicant's children could have decided to use or not to use the psychological service precisely because of the type of relationship they had with them. On the other hand, in such circumstances, there is in any case a structural conflict of interest because another professional would have to be used in the case of requests for the service coming from the psychologist's own children; not to mention the fact that the latter might become aware of the circumstance.

In fact, the same opinion of the Order of Psychologists on which the contested measures were based made it clear that only in the case of particularly large schools or direct notice to two or more professionals can the aforementioned danger be reduced.