Training for teachers from Directorate of Social Defence

Training for teachers at THHV, Potheri - 5 Feb 2009

Center for Counselling conducted a training session on life skills for the teachers from the Government homes. There were 27 teachers present. The experience of teachers varied from recent appointees 2 weeks ago to those appointed for many years, those who got promotions into becoming teachers from house masters etc.

What was very interesting in this training was to note how everyone struggled to get hold of this job. We conducted various exercises to help understand and learn self esteem, decision making, critical analysis, empathy, creativity etc. 

List of activities:

1. Election campaign - The objective of this activity was that everyone promotes themselves by explaining all the positive qualities they have. This activity helped me explain self esteem very clearly. Each participant was given a chart and asked to make a campaign poster. This helped in explaining creativity as a skill.
2. Gifts from the heart - The objective was to teach empathy as a skill. All participants gave and received gifts. This exercise helped participants put themselves in the role of the receiver and choose a gift that was most suitable for the receiver. Explaining critical analysis and decision making was also through these exercises.
3. Karupu than ennaku pedicha coloru -   Right now, Center for Counselling is running a short campaign on explaining that no matter what the skin color is, you are important. Who you are and how you are is more important than the color of the skin. Children of the Kellys home have sent in poems, short stories, paintings, charcoal sketches and are making collages on the theme.

We had a very interesting election campaign and had an opportunity to hear all the positive qualities that each teacher had. Overall, the session was very well received and everyone participated enthusiastically.

Group therapy for LGBTQ community

CFC has been conducting group therapy sessions for the Tamil and English speaking participants, these sessions that I conduct get supervised by Herb Propper from the US.

These sessions are very interesting and the group seems to enjoy it very much. Some issues that came up for discussion were:

1. Deciding future of an individual regarding career choice vs her political work relating to gender issues
2. Frustration relating to family pressure on getting married - this was a hot topic brought up by the group members and each participant talked about their own perspective of marriage.
3. Issues of abuse by one's own family members
4. Self esteem and self worth and saying "no" were some of the issues we discussed
5. Gearing up for a break up
6. Dealing with family
7. Coming out to family
8. Dealing with violence in the relationship

Each group cycle is 8 sessions - once/ week, we run the sessions once a week in English and once a week in Tamil. We have finished 21 group sessions so far. 

Resource Center - Kellys

Resource Center  

The directorate of Social Defense invited us to run the resource center in the Kellys home for girls. We have been working there past 4 months. Our team consists of trained social workers, counsellors, and psychologists, people trained in dance therapy, drama therapy, and art therapy, special educators who make assessments and create remedial lessons for learning disabilities.

Right now our team is:

 

Antonia Bavani – Project Manager

Magdalene Jeyarathnam – Counsellor

Tamilarasi – Psychologist

Dhanalakshmi – Counsellor

Lakshmi Ramachandran – Counsellor

Geeta Rajendran - Counsellor

Our current work involves conducting:

Counselling sessions: This is either - One to one sessions or Group sessions. Both the above involves giving emotional support, helping making decisions and encouraging behavior change.

Counselling Training: We have run several staff trainings so far. Even before we started work in the home. In fact our introduction to the Kellys home is through our training on child friendly approaches. Please see the link :

 

http://centerforcounselling.blogspot.com/2009/02/write-up-on-center-for-counsellings.html

Our workshops are for parents, those working with children and teachers

Preparing material: We prepare protocols, guidelines, life skills education material, material for sex education, stories for children etc

Our experience in the field of counselling children – Play therapy

Play therapy can be done through storytelling, drama (“playing make-believe”), games, puppets, dolls, masks, drawing, painting, sculpture, etc.  At present, very few of our child counsellors are trained in, or are even aware of, these play-based methods, which can be used to draw a child into discussing what is going on with him/her. 

In the organisations that work with children and seek to utilise counsellors to provide children with emotional support and facilitate children’s self-understanding, “talk therapy” is the main method used.  Talk therapy helps adults, but does it work for children?  A child may find it difficult to express him/herself in analytical words -- and all the more so when asked to talk directly about his/her problems with an adult.  A child-counselling session should be all about the child: when a counsellor uses a medium like analytical talk, which he/she is comfortable with, the counsellor may not be approaching the situation from the child’s perspective, and may not be utilising the child’s primary abilities.  This might be unfair to the child, and might also be ineffective: the counsellor could very easily assume what is happening, instead of actually knowing what is happening.  

Chennai’s Center for Counselling addresses these issues by: 

 

Ø    Training counsellors working with children

So far we have trained around 100 people from various organisations on counselling approaches for children. The counsellors come from schools, organisations working with HIV infected and affected children.

Ø    Training teachers and parents.  

We have conducted workshops for teachers and parents on handling children by giving them practical tips on how to cope with children, discipline them and support them.

 

Ø    Providing counselling for children through one to one session or group counselling. Through group counselling we cover issues like Anger, Poor academic performance etc.

 

Through group counselling we cover issues like anger management, poor academic performance etc. We give emotional support to deal with physical, psychological and sexual abuse.

Ø    Center for counselling also makes assessment for children with special needs. Assessments for identifying slow learners or learning disabilities. We give remedial lessons for children who need it.

 We have developed several formats for making assessments, recording sessions, bringing about a change not only with the girls in the home but also the staff working here. Our work with children breaks our heart sometimes; it is very heart warming other times.

 

If you wish to volunteer please get in touch with us:

info@centerforcounselling.org

+919884700104/ +919884100135/ 91-44- 42080810

Counselling Gap analysis - SIAAP

South India AIDS action programme is conducting a counselling gap analysis study for TANSACS and APAC.

Magdalene Jeyarathnam was asked as a consultant to be a part of the investigation team. She visited Madurai for 3 days to conduct interviews of lab technicians, counsellors, doctors and nurses. She visited Madurai medical college hospital, Madurai Meenakshi college Hospital, RUSS - NGO, Usilampatti GH.

She also gave a talk to the students of Social Work Department in Fatima College in Madurai. She discussed with the HOD on the possibility of getting students to do their internship in CFC and further collaborations with the college of social work.

Trainings conducted in February

Transport Corporation of India - 20 Feb

Counsellors from 15 clinics in 7 states came for counselling training. In this beautiful resort midway between Delhi and Jaipur.

There were 22 participants and our founder conducted sessions on 

• Understanding the counselling process
• Understanding counselling relationships
• Introduction of counsellor to client
• Qualities of a counsellor
• We conducted a mock session between a driver and counsellor 

Training in Olcott School

We are completing the psycho education programme on alcohol and tobacco for the 9th and 8th standard students.

We also did a parenting workshop for parents of 6th std students

Child centered counselling approaches for World Vision, RRTC, Umran, Meghalaya, Feb 9 to 11, 2009

 

World Vision was pilot testing a training programme for the 6 North east states of India - Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura, Assam, Meghalaya. This was a 5 day training module, consisting of various aspects. Center for Counselling is doing one day of the module on child centered approaches of working with children.

This training was conducted by Magdalene Jeyarathnam and Mrinalini Sekhar. We received very good feedback from participants.

Write up on Center for Counselling's Child Centered Counselling Skill building workshop

“Child-Centered Counselling: Psychosocial Support for Children”

by Magdalene Jeyarathnam

Chennai’s Center for Counselling has developed a series of four-day counselling skill - building workshops in Child-Centered Counselling.  In the past year, AIDS Alliance has had 50 of its counsellors from the CHAHA project experience these workshops in Ooty, Vijayawada and Warangal. World Vision has sent many of their counsellors and we have conducted 2 workshops exclusively for the World vision staff. We have also trained many counsellors from various parts of the country on this topic. 

Child-Centered Counselling lays a basic foundation for counsellors working with children by first-of-all helping counsellors to remember what it is to be a child.  Counsellors learn ways of interacting with children in a medium which is native to children, the medium of play.  Play can occur through storytelling, drama (“playing make-believe”), games, puppets, dolls, masks, drawing, painting, sculpture, etc.  Counsellors are exposed to numerous exercises involving the use of imagination and improvisation.  In conjunction with these play and expressive activities, counsellors learn ways of engaging a child in conversation regarding issues that may have appeared through the play activities, thus enabling the child to discuss what is going on with him/her.  

“Talk therapy” is the main method used by many counsellors whose mission it is to provide children with emotional support and to facilitate children’s self-understanding.  “Talk therapy” alone may help adults, but does it work for children?  A child may find it difficult to express him/herself in analytical words alone, and all the more so when asked to talk directly about his/her problems with an adult.  Asking a child to communicate through analytical talk alone, may miss utilising the child’s primary expressive and communicative abilities.  This could lead to a counsellor assuming what is happening with a child, instead of actually discovering what is happening. 

Counselling is generally about helping a client to understand what is going on in his/her life, and to consider options of how to cope with or overcome any difficulties.  Play can be used to help the child express emotions, overcome fears, and grow out of inappropriate behaviours.  Bringing out emotions through play is in itself the beginning of healing, and is followed by discussion, enabling integration and understanding by the child.

In India, colleges tend to offer very generic training in counselling, and this training is almost always geared towards counselling adults.  In countries like the USA, UK and Australia, Masters Degree programs in play therapy, art therapy, music therapy and drama therapy are available, but in India very few of our child counsellors are trained in, or are even aware of, the play-based methods.  The Center for Counselling has thus taken on the project of gathering many of the play-based approaches in a systematic and rigorous manner, and making them available in easily-understandable ways for counsellors in India.

Storytelling therapy

All play-based therapies revolve around storytelling.  Stories give meaning to life, express values, and convey culture.  Three kinds of stories are personal stories, traditional stories and created stories.  Created stories often involve a mix of elements from personal and traditional stories.

We teach counsellors ways of finding, creating and modifying stories which may help individual children to cope with certain situations in life.  Counsellors learn ways of becoming more effective storytellers.  Counsellors also learn ways of helping children themselves to make up and tell stories which will help them work through their issues. 

The story of a cocoon, for example, can be used to illustrate the continuity of life, death and rebirth, and to help a child understand that the death of an individual can be seen as a stage in the ongoing life of a family and community.  Such stories can help a child to understand death especially in the HIV/AIDS context, in which a child may be exposed to the death of parents or siblings, or may have a lot of queries about the possibility of his/her own death due to HIV/AIDS. 

Art therapy

Art therapy is not about creating great works of art.  Rather it is just about shaping clay, making collages, making stick figures, or doodling, just letting your hand intuitively pick colours and paint designs.  What a child chooses to paint, and the way he/she paints, can give the therapist an excellent window into the child’s world.  As the saying goes, a picture can be worth a thousand words.

Making art can help children come to terms with loss, and transform their anger and aggression.  This activity can also make children feel good, by giving them a sense of accomplishment.

We teach several drawing exercises which can help children to express their emotions and thoughts, and tell a story.  We also teach simple ways of using puppets.

Drama therapy

Drama therapy is often utilised to help a client solve a practical social problem, and explore and resolve unhealthy patterns of interaction.  One form of drama therapy is Psycho-drama, which involves improvising imagined dialogue between various people in the client’s life, and even between various aspects within the client.

Dance/Movement therapy

Dance/Movement therapy is the use of movement and dance for discovering, expressing and working through emotional, cognitive, social, behavioural and physical difficulties.  Some of the exercises involve styles of walking and gesturing.  Some exercises include music and speech, and some are done in silence.

The focus of the workshops is on teaching exercises to counsellors that counsellors can then use with the children with whom they are working.  Workshop participants get opportunities to share their experiences and thoughts with other counsellors -- both in the immediate workshop and beyond.  They draw up individual and collective action plans to implement Child-Centered Counselling in the institutions in which they work.  Finally, workshops participant are given suggestions regarding follow-up evaluation and development of the methods.

Magdalene Jeyarathnam is the founder-director of Center for Counselling, Chennai.

www.centerforcounselling.blogspot.com,www.centerforcounselling.org, info@centerforcounselling.org

044-42080810 / 9884700135 / 9884100135