Training on Orientation to life skills for the staff in the government home on Sep 26th

Training was conducted on the importance of life skill program for the house masters from the government homes. Recently there has been a spate of events happening in the government homes. It ranges from bullying other children to the recent murder of staff in Tanjore. The ministry of socail defence in response is continuing to do the good work by training the staff on child friendly counselling skills and orienting them on various developmental needs and aspects of up bringing a child.

Our founder did an orientation of the life skills training that will be held in the home soon. The life skills programme is going to be an ongoing programme in the government home. Some of the staff will be trained to do the life skill programme. This  2 hour orientation will help the staff learn the importance of life skills education. 

Upcoming Counselling Workshops

Center for Counselling in Chennai  announces it’s upcoming counselling workshops

October 2008

Counselling through Human Development

28 Oct Tues to 31 Oct Fri

November 2008 

Handling loss and grief

Nov 28th Fri , 29th Sat and 30th  Sun

December 2008

Crisis Intervention

Dec 27^th Sat to Dec 29^th Mon

All sessions are 10am to 5pm.

Counselling through Human Development (28th to 31st October) - This workshop will take one through the life-long process of human development. From this workshop one will be able to understand the counselling needs at different stages of human life, and the challenges faced in each stage.

Handling Loss and Grief (28th to 30th  November) - Grief is a natural, healthy process that enables one to recover from terrible emotional wounds. Understanding the nature of grief can help one to better cope with loss. Grief that is left unresolved may trigger depression, alcoholism, drug abuse, or other serious problems.

Crisis Intervention (27^th to 29^th December) - Crisis intervention can be crucial stage in victims. This workshop will focus on how to help victims confront the reality of what happened, begin to deal with the crisis, go beyond the pain and emotional trauma toward new strength and opportunities for growth and change.

Video recording and playback will be used for training purposes.

The workshops will be led by Magdalene Jeyarathnam, Founder of the Center for Counselling. She has worked as a consultant in counselling training, and curriculum development, for several organization including TANSACS (Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society), and the Governments of Bhutan, Myanmar and Thailand.

The Workshop Venue is Center for Counselling Office –

18 Radhakrishnan Salai, 9th Street, 3rd Floor, Mylapore, Chennai 600 004.

Telephone numbers: 044- 42080810/ 9884700174/ 9884100135

Email:info@centerforcounselling.org

magdalene@centerforcounselling.org

thamilarasi@centerforcounselling.org

Child Centered Approaches to Counselling for staff under the Directorate of Social Defence, Sep 08th to 11th

We Conducted a training workshop on child centered approaches to counselling for staff under the director of social defence which took place in Abu Palace in Ponnamallee High Road on September 8^th – 11^th 2008 which was organized by Chennai Street Children prevention and rehabilitation project, World Vision India.

Training was done for four days and two days training separately for old and the new staff.

Staff from Chengalpattu, Kellys, Attur and Royayapuram had joined the training. Some of them were teachers, watchman, warden and House masters who took care of the children.

The training workshop was inaugurated by the Commissioner, Mrs Jayashree Raghunath. Some of the topics covered in the training were Introduction to counselling skills, Introduction to different approaches to work with children like story telling, Art etc, Developmental Mile stones, Identifying Symptoms in children with Learning Disability, Emotional Problems, Psychiatric Problems and also the focus was on the ways of engaging children in different activities and games.

The participants were very enthusiastic and each home made an Action plan where they explained how they are planning to implement what they learnt. Both the batches gave excellent feedback about the training. We enjoyed running this workshop as much as the participants enjoyed participating in this.

Radio Programme- MOP Vaishnav College

MOP Vaishnav college for women have a FM radio station which serves the community of 5 kms radius around the college. They are doing a 22 week programme on prevention of HIV transmission from parents to children. I was the first studio guest when they launched the programme on June 26th and was invited again for their 10th episode on 28th August.

This is a call in programme and many people called to ask their doubts about HIV/AIDS.

Parenting Workshop - Olcott memorial School Chennai, August 27th 2008

Parenting Workshop - Olcott memorial School Chennai, August 27^th 2008

Parents of the 9^th and 10^th standard students participated in the Workshop. Most of the women were working as Domestics workers, one of the man in the group was an Auto driver. Many topics were discussed. It was seen that the parents had a good insight about the issues which we planned to discuss irrespective of their educational and family background. A good discussion took place and a lot of points were contributed by the participants. They were more aware of the reality and the expectations from their children and also said that they were making an effort to meet the needs of their children inspite of their situation and circumstances.

We focused on some issues like what the parents face in bringing up the children of this age group and also issues like what they think children have.

The Developmental Mile stone for this age group (Middle Adolescents ) was discussed and presented to the group and also points and tips on some of the strategies useful in bringing up the Children.

Four day Workshop- Approaches to working with Children for Child Haven, August 21st to August 24th

Center for Counselling conducted a four day Workshop in Child Haven Kaliyampoondi, Kanchipuram District. The participants were from different branches of Child Haven.

For more information on Child haven international please look up www.childhaven.ca

Our participants were from : Tamil Nadu, New Delhi, Gujarat, Maharastra, Andhra Pradesh, and Bangladesh and two observers from Canada.

Participants were caregivers, manager, accountant- from varied backgrounds.

The resource persons for the workshop were

1. Mr Eric Miller, Professor - Image Animation College and the Founder of the World Storytelling Institute.
   
2. Ms. Magdalene Jeyarathnam - Counsellor and Founder of CFC.
   
3. Ms. Thamilarasi.S - Training manager, CFC
   
4. Ms. G. Chandra – consultant for CFC and a theatre artist
   
5. Ms. Mrinalini Sekhar – consultant for CFC on creative movement
   
6. Ms. Roshini Kumar– Full time Counsellor and works part time with CFC
   

Certificates were distributed at the end of 4 days by Ms. Bonnie Cappuccino, International Director- Child Haven

The feedback and evaluation we received from the participants

“The workshop was very positive, very accepting of various view points, not judgmental, everybody had a good time and because of the group activities bonded together….”

– Bonnie Cappuccino, International Director- Child Haven.

“It is the first time I enjoyed such session and I really like it so far and I hope I might be able to get a chance in future for such workshops. Few points that I learnt is that I never had any idea that by story or drawing or drama can bring out picture of life. So I liked all those ideas…” - Saiful, Coordinator, Child Haven Bangladesh.

“This workshop is wonderful. This workshop session is very interesting to our child haven whole family..”- S.B.Irudhayanathan, Child Haven Kaliyampoondi Village, Kanchipuram Dist.

“The workshop was really very good, I learnt many things. Though I attended many different counselling but this workshop was very good, which I can remember always. I would like to attend such counselling always and always…”- Mary Solomon, Child Haven Andhra Pradesh.

“I learnt many things through this workshop specially the importance of Art, Story and Drama… No doubt you all have opened my eyes. I believe it will make a great difference in reaching all our Child Haven International to their own goal..”- Dawa, Child Haven New Delhi

“The workshop was very good and helpful to children and adults. I learnt from the team many things that are important in my life..”- Kala Barot , Child Haven Gujarat

“This workshop was good. I learnt that how to live with children and how to teach them, like through games, arts, etc and activities and games were very good…”- Prakash D. Patil, Child Haven Maharashtra

Stress and Anger Management Workshop July 26th to July 29th 2008

Various topics were covered in the workshop that increased one's awareness of personal stressors and the triggers of anger and stress. Participatory learning techniques like exercises, games were used to overcome stress and anger.

Yoga, creative movements and relaxation techniques were some of the strategies used to overcome stress.

Some of the feedback from the participants was

“The workshop was excellent ..I have no words to express….. I learnt to maintain and stay calm, live without stress and some points (tips) for that was very useful, Self care, handling of critical situation, excellent guided imaginary, modern yoga , balanced diet and its necessity was great. It was a great opportunity to analysis everything with Ms. Magdalene. … I liked the methodology … Hospitality and everything was in the top most position. …But I felt that the workshop was short …..” – Shiva kumar, Sangama, Chennai

“This workshop was very good and very useful for life…. The few points I learnt was what is stress? How it affects us, What is anger and how it affects us. .. Ho w to handle stress…… Importance of exercises…... .. How to solve problems………..The games and activities in the workshop was very good and very useful………The food was very good and the training space was very good……… everything was good and it was very useful and important personally to me………..” – Sundar , Sahodaran, Chennai

Mrinalini Sekar Life style Management consultant facilitated the creative movement session

Some of the feedback were

• Activities were very deep and lots of emotions came out, it could have been nice if one issue is discussed among stress. (Just a suggestion)
• Theory about morning session was very very important. Tips about food, diet, exercise were very informative.
• Very intense and internal thinking triggers with activities, so as a therapist how to take care.
• On the whole Stress and Anger was released and thought provoking.

- Geethu Pappu, Chennai

• The session was wonderful on lifestyle management. The importance of physical fitness was well explained. Especially the lifestyle clouds exercise was wonderful; it made me realize my stress points.... Simple exercises were thought (Easy practice at home).

- Mohan Babu, Hoper's Foundation