Mental Health counselling for Adolescents in India

MENTAL HEALTH COUNSELLING FOR ADOLESCENTS ACTIVITY REPORT (JANUARY TO MARCH 2018)

 PROJECT BACKGROUND

 Work Area:

Bapunagar, Rakhiyal, Gomtipur, Saraspur and Ramolareas in East Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Objectives :

•  To identify psychological problems prevailing among adolescents.
• To intervene with adolescents so that they develop better coping skills to lead a better quality of life.
•  To provide psycho-education to parents where need arises.
• To train teachers of schools in Bapunagar in providing support to adolescents.
• To hold hands of teachers and monitor their performance.

Activities :

• Approaching schools to contact adolescents enrolled.
• Approaching communities to contact non-school going and dropped out adolescents.
• Guiding Adolescents to curative path.
• Counselling
• Psycho-education of parents
• Psychiatric care with medicines
• Training Teachers for care of Adolescents
• Monitoring of Teachers' performance

Awareness Meetings

Awareness raising meetings with adolescents were held at the community. These meetings primarily focused on their day-to-day issues that have to be faced by them effectively with more strength and courage. The counsellor made efforts to identify the problems of the adolescents by noting their shared responses during the awareness meetings. 36 awareness meetings were conducted at the community level covering 873 adolescents.

NB: Due to preparation for annual examination, awareness meetings were not held at the school level.

Number of cases handled

Once all cases approached the centre and intervened by the counsellor, a total of 9 cases were followed closely. The adolescents who approached the centre were provided with both counselling and medical help. Detailed assessment, intervention and follow up sessions within the community were held at the centre as per the requirement.

DIAGNOSIS OF ISSUES UNDER EACH CATEGORY

• Emotional / behavioural / personal issues - 5 cases
• Mild Depression Disorder with Anorexia Nervosa - 1 case
• Seizures - 1 case
• Panic disorder with depression - 1 case
• Mild Depression Disorder with Impulsivity - 1 case

TEACHERS TRAINING

As part of AWAG's ongoing activities related to Mental Healthcare of Adolescents, a Training Programme on Adjustment Problems of Adolescents was conducted from 20-23 February 2018 with Teachers from Asarwa Vidyalaya at AWAG Ghar, Bapunagar. The programme had the active participation of a total of 25 teachers.

SUMMARIZATION OF THE CASES

To summarize, of the total of 9 cases, 5 cases fall under counselling category, while 4 cases fall under psychiatric category. None of the cases fall under advice category which needed any kind of other investigations. All the 5 cases that fall under the counselling category faced emotional/ behavioural/ personal problems.Adolescents at the secondary stage (age group ranging from 16-22 years) seem to face more problems. Majority of them are school dropouts.

THANK YOU!