National Convention of School Counsellors on Students at Risk.

When little people are overwhelmed by big emotions, its our job to share our calm, not join their chaos. I.R. Knost

On 22 September 2017, I represented our School at the National Convention of School Counsellors (under Project Paradigm). The convention focussed on Students-At-Risk (Identification, Prevention and Intervention) and was organised by the Institute of Counsellor Training Research and Consultancy (ICTRC) at the India International Centre.

Project Paradigm tries to fill the void in training counsellors by bringing teachers, counsellors, parents and principals together. A gathering of around 250 delegates was present on the occasion and included counsellors, teachers, principals and vice principals of various leading schools of Delhi/ NCR. The resource persons were Drs. V.S. Ravindran, R.K. Saraswat, Kalpana Kapoor and Nien Kaom.

Dr. Ravindran talked about the current and future dimensions and trends of students at risk. He said that students who are not able to achieve the Minimum Level of Learning (MLL) are prone to be at risk in terms of academics, developing cognition, emotions etc. The interaction was carried forward by a discussion on the formation of risk assessment teams in schools, changing the role of school counsellors/teacher- counsellors, early identification of students at risk by individual interviews of parents and child, observations and the 'No Child Left Behind Policy' (NCLB).

Dr. Kapoor spoke about discovering heroes from amongst teachers and counsellors in order to discover heroes among the students, in turn. Prof. Nien Kaom spoke about the inclusion of art and design to help children at risk.

Towards the end, individual questions from the audience were answered by Dr. Ravindran. This helped everyone greatly as it answered queries relating to the early identification and prevention of students at risk, to avoid the danger later.

Ms. Jigyasa Khokhar.