Mental Health counselling for Adolescents in India

Ahmedabad Women's Action Group (AWAG) has been working with mental health amongst adolescents in Gujarat for the last 7 years. Over these years, some of the common problems cited by children are fear and anxiety during exam time, suicidal thoughts and depression problems and lack of understanding by parents.

This project is concentrated in Municipal schools of East Ahmedabad namely – Bapunagar, Rakhial, Gomtipur and Saraspur.

To implement the project, AWAG's appointed staff, i.e. the counselor and social worker have approached to the stated municipal schools of the selected areas. Primary meetings with the Principals of two schools has been done, discussing with them the project idea, AWAG's past establishments in this section and the outcomes of the project. The two municiapl schools where the meeting with the princial is done, has shown positive attitude. The principals in these schools have agreed to conduct a general assembly with the students of standard 8,9 and 10. Both girls and boys will be jointly addressed in the meeting. AWAG has purposefully decided to focus on the adolescent age group, since at this tender age, the problems among teenagers are maximum. In the coming two months, AWAG's staff will discuss with the students the project concept, the general body changes happening during adolescence and the effectivness of appropriate counselling guidance. It is also decided that the counsellor wil visit the school once a week for those students who need personal counselling.

 In one of the schools, out of two, the principal was keenly intrested. Because he wanted the teachers to know about this project idea, a primary meeting with the teachers was arranged. Teachers showed positive response and were happy to lead the project further. AWAG considers teacher's support as one of the signi ficant factor to make this project successful.