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Description
The project “Together we succeed! Psychoeducational workshops for children, parents and teachers” aims to approach a problem that has become more and more present, caused by the pandemic and the restrictions imposed by the authorities: the precarious
emotional condition of pupils and of the resource adults in their life – parents and teachers. Through the project will be organized 20 emotion workshops for 60 children (aged 11 – 14), 6 meetings (support group type) for 30 parents and 20 workshops destined to 20 teachers (4 of them contain a theoretical base, on consolidating their knowledge on online teaching). All workshops will be held online, by specialists (psychotherapists, IT specialist). They aim to empower the adults, who then will be able to support the children. According to the National Institute of Statistics (NSI), in Romania, over 760,000 of the 3.8 million children have mental and emotional problems and according to the WHO, 25% of the children in Europe need psychological counseling. Also, we will focus on the parents’ and the teachers’ emotional stability, given that more than half of the parents apply punishment in educating their children and 86% of the teachers make use of reprimands, high voice, critics, reproaches, sometimes even offenses. Parents fear the uncertain educational future of their children, and teachers feel overwhelmed, finding it hard to adapt to the online environment.
The interventions will consist in support the teenage pupils to overcome the pandemic period, when social contact with friends and colleagues is limited, to identify and manage their emotions, to recognize and know how to act if them or their friends are bullying victims, to learn how to express and argue their ideas, to know their rights and assertively ask for them.
The healthy and educated teenagers are the basis of a stable society and of a well-balanced and developed community.
Summary of project results
The project developed by WAM Association was addressed to an initial number of 110 individuals. The workshops with the children took place twice a month, after identifying their need to talk more about the situations they are confronted with, a supplementary 2 meetings/group being agreed upon. Every group participated in 7 meetings (initially 5), during which we discussed the changes brought by the pandemic in their personal life and at school, the way of interacting with their teachers/colleagues, their rights and how to get informed about them.
The meetings with the parents approached subjects concerning the changes that occurred in their life at a personal/professional level during the pandemic, the way they managed them, anxiety, maintaining/increasing their/their children’s motivation, optimal ways of collaborating with the teachers/children and resilience. The workshops with the teachers took place every two weeks. During the meetings the following topics were discussed: interactive online teaching methods, digital skills/teaching platforms, pandemic challenges, interaction with pupils during online classes, lesson preparation/pupils’ online evaluation, identifying/satisying the parents’/pupils’ need for support concerning the changes from face to face to online lessons and the other way around.
Given the interest of the individuals in the targeted communities to participate in the activities, the number of registrations was higher than anticipated, 50 workshops for 120 beneficiaries being held, as follows: 35 meetings for 66 children, 5 meetings for 30 parents, 10 meetings for 24 teachers. The participants’ testimonials confirmed to us their need to participate in such informal meetings, to have a safe space where they can express themselves freely, without feeling criticized, judged, where they can relate to people facing similar difficult situations. The project’s/donors’ visibility was insured through constant posts on WAM’s website and social media page.