I AM WELLBEING

  For our final supervision session, we were taught how the children’s assessments are conducted to monitor their progress. They are conducted once at the beginning of the month and then at the end - designed to measure their levels of interaction, engagement, emotional expression and creativity.  All of our observations come into play while determining how much to score individual children. As we went into the details of each aspect of the assessment, we were also asked to think about some of these behaviours we might have noticed during our own sessions. For example, a boy in one of our groups barely interacts with us but engages in the given activity. We would then score him high on engagement but low on interaction. Some of the kids seek constant attention, some do not interact at all. We would have to make not of all of this, the consistency of this behaviour and as well as the contexts. This also made us realise just how much effort it takes to observe and note down the ...

          Our supervision session for the academic part of the internship was about the NEP and its effects on foundational learning. I, for one, believe that the NEP was a much needed shift in India’s education system that still relied on traditional ways of schooling. To put it in perspective, my mother and I studied under the same structure of education, which in the modernised world is quite ridiculous to even consider.  We started off with an overview of the broader changes and the holistic additions made to the curriculum. Thankfully, we had discussions in between to avoid the monotony of educational theory from setting in. Our focus was mainly on the foundational years since that is the age group I Am Wellbeing and Myra Foundation deal with. The curriculum was now more holistic, with an integration of play in learning. Play is an essential component for ensuring the natural cognitive, affective and behavioural development in a child. We then...

Our supervision session for the week was interesting, to say the least. It featured a ‘ lambi daadhi wale baba’, an omnipotent all-knowing sadhu who channelized himself through our mentors. Our session was then an hour of song, dance and theatre.  For an hour, it felt like we had taken a step back from reality and were suspended in a world of make-believe, imagination and creativity with no boundaries for logic. I was Santara Devi, with my fellow past-life bhakts - Gulabo, Angoori, Barfi Rani and others. We were forced to think about alternate universes, about our characters’ life stories and troubles and moments of revelations. It was a little daunting to completely step into a fictional character’s shoes and create a story out of it, but at the same time, it was fun and silly. And so we came up with over-the-top origin stories of our past-life alter egos. By the end, we were all giggling, feeling much lighter than we had started and definitely feeling more positive.  What w...

Smiling faces, excited chattering and a loud chorus of “Good Evening, Ma’am!”. That’s how we were met for our first academic session. After a week of observations, we were to conduct sessions ourselves and our debut began with an energetic response, to say the least. I had been nervous, stressed out and completely overwhelmed with the number of things to keep in mind, what to say and the words we used. I was ready to improvise and adapt to whatever comes our way and was just hoping I would be able to live up to the task. As the session began, however, most of my stress was put to ease.  Our group of interns had been divided into teams to conduct the sessions, so there was some reassurance of support in case any of us fumbled or needed assistance. For our first session, my partner and I decided to interact equally, just so the kids would be comfortable with both of us. So off started our session, beginning with a quick rapport building activity. Honestly, the minute I started intr...

Project Arya Trauma-Informed Internship I decided to intern with I Am Wellbeing as a part of Project Arya because I was looking for a chance to understand the field of child psychology better. I felt that I Am Wellbeing provided a unique opportunity that made mental health accessible to underprivileged communities through a trauma focused perspective - something I had not come across before. This was a programme whose philosophy of working I believed in and respected, so I wasted no time in signing up. Our training programs had a clear flow to them, from theory to application, leaving room for discussions and exchanging perspectives. With the focus on trauma, we were taught about its impacts and cycles, delving into learned behaviours, emotional and cognitive development and most importantly, the factors that could help break the cycle of trauma. By the end of the first day of training, I was even more convinced of the importance of bringing psychology to sensitive areas of society....