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School Wellness Programs

Burden of Childhood Emotional Problems

Psychological problems are a leading cause of turmoil in children and teenagers. Low- and middle- income countries (LMICs) have an especially higher adolescent population and hence their burden is proportionately loftier. Since children spend a third or more of their day at school, it becomes a significant influencer of their wellbeing. The World Health Organization (WHO) also agrees that globally we need to enhance our efforts to reduce mental health disparities in children and make emotional care more accessible to them.

Since schools hold power as enriching educational environments, they can be championed to take on emotional and social wellbeing by addressing mental health determinants alongside academics. As institutions with a body of children, teachers and parents already in connection with each other, schools offer an open playground to compose and advocate emotional solutions to one and many of these stakeholders. A school-based intervention, for example educative workshops for staff, teachers, parents and children; can colossally increase access to wellness and care.

school age children find it hard to share emotional troubles

Delivery of Socio-Emotional Education in Schools

Emotional education is not a novel concept; schools recognize it. Some schools teach moral science as a subject once a week, but that isn’t sufficient and doesn’t do justice to the social and emotional developmental needs of children. Emotional empowerment ought to be an ongoing and permanent didactic process wherein emotional advancement compliments intellectual development. The number of research articles in journals worldwide, repeatedly highlight the role of emotions in facilitating or impeding academic engagement and success. With that evidence in place, even if schools are oblivious to holistic development; they still need to fulfill emotional basics in order to supplement academic goals.

School Wellness Strategies

Classroom based programs can be designed to meet varied wellness goals. Health is not merely an absence of disease (physical and psychological). It is a state of universal wellness. With that in mind we envision 2 core models of school wellness delivery.

Therapeutic Approach

We know that children struggle with academic and extra-curricular competition, interpersonal mayhem, peer pressure, parental conflict, career struggles, pubertal changes, sexuality concerns and more. A proactive approach involves spreading awareness of problems like anxiety, depression, social anxiety, stage fright, shyness and suicide; destigmatizing them, and offering motivating to seek help. This also challenges and breaks negative attitudes and stigma.

Preventive Approach

This aims at promoting positive emotional health, also called ’emotional intelligence’ or ’emotional literacy’. It assists children in developing emotional and social skills that improve behavior, and support academic learning. There isn’t a direct attack on anxiety, depression or psychological illness that already exists; rather it’s a preventive focus to assure these problems do not arise. It looks at life as a whole, and how to make children live it whole heartedly.

How Emotional Education is Imparted

An emotional learning program builds on children’s emotional quotient (EQ) and enhances their emotional intelligence (EI). EI is a capacity to recognize and manage emotions, solve problems efficiently, and establish meaningful relationships with others. School is a perfect ground for this. There are different competencies that reflect intrapersonal and interpersonal skills in children. Some of these are explained below, in keeping with Daniel Goleman’s theory of emotional intelligence.

Self-awareness

This focuses on the child’s ability to recognize and comprehend his or her emotions, personal goals, dreams and values. It assists in identifying one’s own reactions and moods, comprehending the effects of rejection and being aware of peer, career and life choices.

Self-management

This is the child’s knack at regulating emotions and behaviors. When children have fulfilled the first step of recognizing their emotions, they need to be taught how to modulate them in different situations. It helps in preventing depression, anxiety and oversensitivity to rejection.

Social awareness

Social awareness enables children to read other’s emotions, understand their perspective, acknowledge differences in opinion, and accept diversity gracefully. This encourages them to look out of the box, think laterally and enhances their imaginative potential too.

Interpersonal Skills

This foundation stone of success is toughened in place by enhancing children’s ability to establish positive relationships with peers, teachers and parents. Children with good interpersonal skills become more confident and make more rational and responsible decisions.
Socio-emotional skills cannot be taught effectively through books. Hence learning through interactive exposure with interesting emotional homework can be targeted through innovative teaching and coaching methods. These programs can be designed to involve measurement of emotional variables, workshops (seminars and webinars), weekly wellness messages and other customized methods. Teacher training forms a large component here as teachers with high EI generate a more positive school climate, which eases the program implementation and gives more opportunities to practice social and emotional skills.

Cooperative Learning Concept

In cooperative learning, students are responsible not just for themselves but for the other students too. So, the focus of learning becomes internalizing concepts as well as helping one another. It is an interesting and innovative method of combining emotional, social and academic learning. Cooperative learning explicitly funds interpersonal intelligence, because the skills needed for social interaction are practiced every day and developed in an ancillary way. It becomes a win-win situation and changes the socio emotional climate in schools. Such and other techniques that subtly motivate prosocial behaviors in school children have burgeoned in the past decade.

MindFrames School Wellness Delivery

Wellness measurement throws light on targetable areas of intervention. It also estimates the psychological climate in the school at a point in time. Parents and children both can fill in online questionnaires, surveys and other assessment tools following which delivery of wellness can be planned through mailers, posters, instant messages, webinars, and more. Programs are best when customized to age, preference, and the overall emotional need identified.

Child Assessment

  • Aggression
  • Anxiety/ Phobia
  • Assertiveness
  • Attention and Focus
  • Career Motivation
  • Career Personality
  • Depression
  • Emotional Quotient
  • Interpersonal Skills
  • Multiple Intelligence
  • Personality Profiling
  • Pessimistic Thinking
  • Self-Esteem
  • Stress Vulnerability
  • Study Skills
  • Subject Interest
  • Temperament

Child Workshops

  • Be nice to friends
  • Build social skills
  • Conquer depression
  • Deal with feelings
  • Distress to De-stress
  • Fight stage fright
  • Fuel your confidence
  • Inculcate positivity
  • Intelligence building
  • Let’s talk about sex!
  • Manage aggression
  • No more exam stress
  • Overcome insecurity
  • Overpower anxiety
  • Personality makeover
  • Pick the right career
  • Study skills training

Staff Workshops

  • ADHD in Children
  • Anxious Children
  • Autism Spectrum
  • Communication
  • Depressed Children
  • Difficult Children
  • Gender Disorders
  • Learning Disabilities
  • Listening Skills
  • Multiple Intelligence
  • Parent Interaction
  • Personality Profiling
  • Relationships
  • Rowdy children
  • Stress and Burnout
  • Teamwork
  • Work Life Balance

We are eager to help you help your children. All our programs are customized, with flexibility in frequency, duration of workshops, analysis, assessment, educational material, and more. Please connect with us. We’re here to make a difference.

Dr Shefali Batra is a Feature Writer in the Teenager Today (India’s first Teen Zine) since 15 years. The magazine is focused on adolescent wellness. 

References

  • Mira-Galvañ, M. J., & Gilar-Corbi, R. (2020). Design, Implementation and Evaluation of an Emotional Education Program: Effects on Academic Performance. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 1100.
  • Hayes, D., Moore, A., et al., (2019). Promoting mental health and wellbeing in schools: examining Mindfulness, Relaxation and Strategies for Safety and Wellbeing in English primary and secondary schools: study protocol for a multi-school, cluster randomised controlled trial (INSPIRE). Trials, 20(1), 640.
  • Bentham, C., Daunt, A., Taylor, S., Simmons, M., (2013). Mental health workshops delivered by medical students in Cambridge secondary schools: an evaluation of learning. Psychiatr Danub. Suppl 2:S224-30.

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