Workshop on ‘watching over the fence: Counselor-Teacher partnership in day-to-day schooling’
Faculty of Education organised a workshop for the counselors and special educators of MRIS, titled ‘Watching over the fence: Counselor-Teacher partnership in day-to-day schooling’. The theme of the workshop was to involve the teachers in day to day counseling in schools in order to cater to the counseling needs of every student. The workshop was attended by 16 counselors from the Manav Rachna International School. Subsequently, the participants were engaged in a discussion where in they explored the larger purpose behind being a school counselor and the restricting factors that stop them from reaching out to every student in the school. The discussion led to the theme of the workshop in which they identified the need to collaborate with the teachers to ensure school wide counseling intervention. During the last session benefits of specific tools like multiple intelligence survey, placing a dropbox, constructing a class profile etc. were discussed. Later, the participants were provided with the same in the form of handouts to be used in schools by the students, teachers and counselors. The objective behind developing and distributing these tools was to ensure a uniform and grass root level counseling intervention across all Manav Rachna schools.
During the wrap up session anecdotal sharing took place that opened up opportunities for the participants to think more creatively and seek out-of-the-box solutions. The participants expressed their eagerness to apply the new approach in their respective schools in order to ascertain positive mental health of all the students. The analysis of feedback forms filled by them revealed the need for more similar workshops to be held in order to refine their counseling skills.