Children’s mental health and wellbeing- Understanding counselling practices at schools (Part 1.1)

- There is a strong need to balance academic excellence and quality of life at school. Currently, due to various factors, the schools and parents are focused more on academic than the quality of life. Various studies are being undertaken to understand ‘holistic development’ of children at school as well as home.

A field research was undertaken titled 'Children’s mental health: Towards an understanding of school counselling practices’, and soon after that, another study was done on ‘Wellbeing policies’. This field intervention was done in five schools of Mysore, Karnataka, India. And the mentor for the field research (first study) on children’s mental health was Mrs Rajashree, a faculty member and Education program head at Azim Premji University, Bangalore.

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The child’s wellbeing and mental health are very crucial for the child’s success at school as well as life. In today’s scenario around the world, particularly in urban centres, children are not getting adequate care- due to many factors such as nuclear families, both parents working, and social media etc. We were very curious to understand how a counsellor in a school can help children to overcome any hurdles they might face in their school life and outside school life. In this field research, I engaged in a mix of schools who had appointed counsellors, and also schools who had not appointed counsellors. This way we had an opportunity to understand the child’s mental health support in both kinds of school settings.

According to (American school counsellor association, N.A), school counsellors are certified/licensed educators who improve student success by implementing a comprehensive school counselling program. School counsellors are vital members of the education team and maximize student success. School counselling program entails counsellors, to apply academic achievement strategies, manage emotions and apply interpersonal skills, guide and plan for higher education, one to one counselling to all the students, and many more.

How does counselling support benefits students- it is an effective source of support for students, enabling them to function better both in and outside of the school, enhancing their resilience and giving them resources to manage challenges life throws at them, students gain a better understanding of themselves and the situations facing them and strategies to cope with change (Cathedral school, N.A).

The purpose of this study was to understand how school counsellors are helping the schools and parents to empower children’s wellbeing and mental health. During this study I spent a full day at schools, looking at the day to day affairs of the counsellors. Few schools had full-time counsellors, and few had part-time counsellors.

The period of study was from August 2015 to December 2015, the study tools were designed at Azim Premji University, and the field engagement was from 17^thNovember 2015 to 24^th December 2015. After the study, a comprehensive report was submitted as a student work for the course of M.A Education, Semester: III (2014 – 2016 Batch) at Azim Premji University, Bangalore. The final report was submitted on 20^th March 2016.

We are starting an article series on wellbeing and we would love to share with you the entire study in bits and pieces. This is our first article on this series.

Written by: Maaz Mohammed AQ

(Note: This work was done as a student course work. We do not entertain to use this data for professional or legal use. The founder of Credence Learning Foundation himself is a general counsellor trained at Banjara Academy, Bangalore. During this time of the study, the researcher himself was a certified counsellor. Additionally, the researcher worked at an American MNC before joining the MA Education course. This research work is being referred for the series on wellbeing).

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