A practising psychiatrist and visiting faculty at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Dr Shetty (41) has conducted around 75 workshops on emotional hygiene over the last decade for students, parents, teachers, headmasters/mistresses. The workshops have travelled not just regular schools of different boards, but also BEd institutions. But Dr BMC Shetty feels that it is only over the last couple of years that the importance of counselling and being counselled is catching on. In an interview with Sudeshna Chatterjee, Dr Shetty traces the history of school counselling, the reasons for its unpopularity and challengeahead.

How do you trace the history of school counselling in Mumbai?
The first Child Guidance Clinic was started by TISS at Wadia hospital in 1938. The B started a school health unit in the same year, which referred children with behavioural problems to the hospital. The spin-off of these measures culminated in the first school mental health clinic at Nair hospital in 1979. This is also one of the first in the country. However, only in the last decade has school counselling become more acceptable.

How rampant is the rate of depression among children?
Who figures say 25 per cent of all people who report to family physicians have diagnosable mental illnesses, of which 1/5th are children. More importantly, nearly one in five children and adolescents will have an emotional or behavioral disorder at some time during their youth, regardless of where they live and how well-off they are.

Why then has school counselling not become predominant?
Schools, specially state boardaffiliated, are yet to realise the significance of counselling. The state government has also not made counselling a must in schools despite a WHO recommendation to that effect. I feel that neither the government nor the schools concerned would like to spend on counsellors. Also, counsellors are not popular as they are trained mainly to treat ill children and not to conduct positive mental health activities in schools. Consequently, they have become culturally illiterate as well.

The government should insist on the appointment of a counsellor in every school rather than built statues and spend on awards for millionaire cricketers. Similarly, corporates can divert some funds towards the cause.

What is the challenge before an ideal school counsellor?
The challenge is: how to keep a normal child normal. Here, principals should act as support groups for counsellors. Over the last two-three years, there has been some change, with quite a few schools calling us to implement mental health programmes.Early this year, for instance, about 12 ICSE schools invited me and some colleages. In the last two years, we have focussed on capacity building of 60-odd municipal medical officers who treat BMC children. But it's still few and far between.

What are the cascading effects of ignored counselling in schools?
Children with emotional disturbances may fail academically, be socially rejected and have a poor self image. They may also have difficulties in relating to peers or adults and may have little respect for the laws of their society. Academic failure and social rejection often have lasting consequences because the failure to learn in school limits a person's chances to succeed in the future. Such children are more likely to drift from mainstream society and become targets for unemployment, homelessness or other symptoms of social dysfunctioning.

What are the common signs of mental stress among children?
Refusal to go to school; pain in the abdomen; headache; decrease in academicperformance and nocturnal enuresis.

What should be the nature of school-based intervention?
It may be environment-centred or child-centred; one may lead to the other. School counselling should be a philosophy rather than an activity centred around one person. School mental health programmes should be integrated into general health care. Teachers and parents should be given basic training in understanding the mental hygiene of their students as well as identifying children with behavioural problems who can then be dealt with by counsellors. Which means, the onus is no longer just on the teachers - who are no gods - and the school. The Parent Teachers' Association should also be roped in for the programme with able guidance from the appointed counsellors.

What should be the aim of school-based intervention?
It should provide an experience that will strengthen the children's coping abilites to counter environmental stress and disadvantages with which they have had to cope in growing up.And for this, it is y important to discuss emotions and feelings. In schools, it is intelligence that is given round applause. Emotions are expected to be kept under control. This leads to an unhealthy society.

What are the benefits of mental health programme in schools?
Who studies maintain that such programmes result in higher school attendance rates, enhanced academic success, less school drop-out and reduced criminal behaviour. Mental health education has reduced drug use, alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking in children and adolescents.

One fine example of this programme is in Norway. Instead of teaching individual children to cope with bullying by peers, a national campaign was successfully carried out to reduce bullying throughout the entire school system. The intervention comprised workshops for teachers and parents, booklets, videos and problem solving and social skills training for students - all with a firm, non-aggressive message that bullying would not be tolerated.