Dr Anjali Chhabria, Dr H L Kaila (head of department of guidance and counselling, SNDT University) and Dr Harish Shetty (visiting faculty member, TISS) recently conducted a workshop for 12 principals from schools affiliated to the Indian Certificate for Secondary Education (ICSE) and thrashed out plans for implementation of a mental health programme.The principals were divided into three groups, each having one mental health professional. The first group deliberated on emotional problems of children and ways of handling them. The second one discussed the role of a counseller, while the third group deliberated on how schools act as support groups and the role of Parents-Teacher Associations.

Dr Chhabria said according to a WHOreport at least three per cent of school children suffer from mental illnesses such as depression, suicidal thoughts, psychosis, serious attention problems or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Nearly one in five children and adolescents will have an emotional or behavioural disorder sometime during youth. Mumbai's children are no exception, she noted.

The need is mostly to look at the health programme as a `health issue' and not as an illness, Dr Shetty said. ``As a first step children should be encouraged to share their negative thoughts with their parents, siblings, teachers, etc so that one knows what goes on in a young mind and deal accordingly.

" An ideal starter for a teacher is to break the concept of favouritism and reach out to reclusive students. In fact the idea is instead of counsellors, teachers and parents be effective counsellors for children,'' he observed.Principal Veena Sethi from Marble Arts School, Oshiwara maintained that with nuclear working families, children are increasingly becomingthe latch-key-door generation so badly in need of interaction. In its manual on mental health in schools, the WHO has identified three main elements of a health promoting school- the formal curriculum, the school ethos (physical and social environment) and the relationship between school, home and the surrounding community.

Principal Purna Rao from Lilavatibai Podar High School, Santacruz (W) said her school already has mental health intervention programme as set in a WHO report. It aims at providing an experience to strengthen the child's abilities to cope with environmental stress.

Principal Rao gave a sample - how the problem of indiscipline, especially noisy classes and late-coming are tackled in her school. ``All class teachers devoted half-an-hour in a fortnight in speaking to students about the issues, eliciting class response and solutions. The results were very heartening,'' she observed.

In fact it is my standing instruction to my teachers to just talk to their students one whole period asand when they deem it necessary. It is high time we go beyond text books and curriculum and facilitate interaction first with our students,'' she added.