Parenting workshop on 18th October 2008 for Olcott Memorial School

 

As part of the series of parenting workshops conducted in Olcott Memorial School,  about 20 parents of 8^thstandard students from varied backgrounds were present.

Many issues like anger among the children, child not finishing homework etc were discussed. Parents and teachers worked in groups and discussed these issues. There were many suggestions from parents and teachers on healthy ways of spending time together and at home. Parents requested for regular such workshops. Parents enjoyed being in a group along with teachers and discussing some of the issues of children as a group.

Group therapy for LGBTQ community on 17th October

Center for Counselling along with Sakthi Center conducted two group therapy sessions in our office for the LGBTQ community on 17^th October in Tamil and English. 

Mr Sunil Menon from Sahodaran addressed the group and also laid out the ground rules to the participants. We discussed issues of confidentiality, documentation of the group sessions, photographs. We agreed to have a report of the session completed every week for the participants to look at if they wished. Although everyone agreed to be photographed, we agreed that a written consent from those who are on any photograph will be taken prior to the use of the photo either for funding or reporting. No names of the participants will be mentioned in our reports to funders. 

The Tamil group and the English group was facilitated by Magdalene Jeyarathnam and was co facilitated by Sankari, counsellor and Thamilarasi.S, Training Manager, all from Center for Counselling - Chennai. 

There were  about nine participants in the Tamil group and about seven participants in the English group. They was a lot of emotional ventilation among the participants, especially in the Tamil group. Many issues relating to the relationship participants had with their biological family and also coming out issues were discussed in the groups. The participants agreed to meet again on the following friday on 24^th October. 

If anyone wishes to join the group either Tamil or English, please get in touch with us.

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.