Counsellors visiting homes to help students tackle exam anxiety

Is your child stressed out during the examination period? Don’t worry, counsellors are just a call away. They can now visit your home and help your child manage stress.

Child rights organisations in Bengaluru, in co-ordination with the Karnataka State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (KSCPCR), have taken up an awareness and counselling programme regarding stress and anxiety related to performance in exams among students. The unique aspect of this programme is that counsellors will visit homes of students who need assistance in managing stress.

The programme was initiated by the non-profit, Child Rights Trust (CRT), to reach out to children without making them feel overconscious about the anxiety they are likely to face during exams. Counsellors have already visited the homes of many students who had called seeking assistance, according to Nagasimha G Rao of the CRT. “One might be surprised that more often, it is parents who need to cope with their anxiety and not children. Unwittingly, parents pass on their anxiety to children. We are also counselling parents about this,” he told Deccan Herald.

Counselling will be available not only until both the II PUC and SSLC exams are over, it will also be extended till the exam results are announced. Coping with results that do not match the expectations of students or parents is an important part of dealing with exam-related stress, Rao emphasised.

At present, there are 15 counsellors who are visiting homes of students as and when they get calls seeking assistance. They also visit schools to interact with the teaching staff. Besides professional counsellors, the CRT has trained about 20 Masters of Social Work (MSW) students to help them in the initiative. The focus is also to include active participation of teachers in the process.

A series of workshops for teachers will be conducted over the next two months. Students will also be asked to look out for their stressed out friends, if any.

In case they find any of their classmates or friends depressed, they can help them out by calling the helplines 080-41138285, 080-40912580 or 9880477198.