Manuals

Mental health and well-being of children has emerged as one of the immediate concerns in the current backdrop of COVID-19. The concern becomes even more serious when it is examined through the gender lense where girls especially face deprivations at multiple levels due to the rigid social structures which may cause various serious mental health concerns.

At the same time, it cannot be denied that there is a dearth of appropriate and affordable mental health services in the country. Therefore, the modules in this section are an attempt to build the understanding and preliminary responses around mental health issues. These modules have been designed for community workers who interact with children and their families on a day-to-day basis, so that they are able to identify mental health concerns and to provide some immediate responses through the learnings of various components like emotional well-being, social well-being, psychological first aid etc. etc. These modules also suggest exercises and activities which could be carried out with children at community level when it comes to addressing the mental health concerns of children.

The other module provides requisite skillset for teachers so that while interacting with children, if they come across any possible mental health concerns, they are able to address the same. The idea behind tapping into the pool of teachers on the issue of mental well-being was to create safer space within the schools which goes beyond the physical safety and includes mental well-being within the boundaries of schools. The module for teachers suggests the appropriate and sensitive ways of interacting with children and how to identify and address the mental health concerns by using few simple and practical tools.