What is Psycho-social support
If we want the best for our children, we must help them grow and nurture them on a physical, spiritual, mental, social and emotional level.
Psycho-social support gives attention to all aspects of a child’s well-being including their feelings, their values, their hopes and dreams, their immediate environment, their culture, their traditions, their personal relationships with family, their community and their friends. This state of well-being is called psycho-social well-being.
Psycho-social Support in Schools and Clubs
PTN’s staff and group leaders conduct sessions with children in schools, and various community points on training material developed and designed with Namibians involved with technical support from REPPSI:
- Tree of Life, a psycho-social tool based on narrative practices that uses tree parts as a metaphor for different aspects of our lives. The tool helps trained counselors and paraprofessionals facilitate conversations with children about loss and bereavement in a way that helps them also share stories of hope, shared values and connections to those around them as well as those who died.
- Hero book: Children are motivated to make their own hero books and as authors and illustrators of their own stories are taken on a “victory journey”. Each child highlights how they named and identified strategies to overcome their challenges.
- Journeying towards our dreams: a series of participatory activities that can be used by key stakeholders in school communities to change schools into centers of care and support. Aimed at school communicators and members of the school community and can be used in other places where children’s well-being is involved.