30-AUG-2013VELLORE : The services of the Christian Counselling Centre, Vellore, were hailed by speakers at the 44th Annual Day celebrations of the centre here on Wednesday. The CCC through its various courses in counselling, provided counselling training to 45,000 professionals in the last 44 years. The professionals include psychologists, social scientists, administrators, civil servants, pastors, company executives, and of late prison officials, said B.J. Prashantham, Director of the CCC. Sunil Chandy, Director, Christian Medical College, Vellore requested Dr. Prashantham to provide counselling to politicians, the lone category of people who have been left out, since they required counselling in order to ensure good administration. He said that the total breakdown in discipline, culture and character in India is reflected on the Indian roads marked by the total lack of road discipline, which in turn reflected the lack of will power on the part of the administrators in enforcing the discipline. "Road traffic accidents were becoming the biggest problem in Vellore, not because the roads are narrow, but because of absence of road discipline." This situation throws up a widened scope for counselling activities in order to reverse the trend, he said. Dr. Chandy said that counselling also assumed greater relevance and significance in these days when schoolchildren faced a lot of stress on account of their wrong eating habits necessitated by the absence of care at home in a situation where both the parents went to work. Policepersons and military personnel who were undergoing great stress also needed counselling, he added. M.R. Ahmed, Director, Academy of Prisons and Correctional Administration (APCA) said that statistics revealed that the advancement in material pleasures has increased the rate of psycholog ical disturbances leading to suicides, alcoholism and deterioration in mental health. Twenty-three million Indians were in need of mental health care every year. These people could be helped by empathetic listening, he said. The APCA Director said that among the large number of mentally disturbed persons are prisoners languishing in prisons. According to a survey by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences (Nimhans), Bangalore, 90% of the people who go to prisons suffered from mental health problems. In this background, APCA has tied up with CCC to offer training in counselling to the prison officials, he said. Dr. Ahmed congratulated Dr. Prashantham on his contribution to the CCC, which has made tremendous progress under his leadership in the last 42 years. Lucy Sunder, Managing Trustee, Pravaham Community College said that the college imparted vocational raining to school dropout girls from rural areas to enable them to get qualified as health assistants and preschool teachers. The college imparted holistic education and life-coping skills to the school dropout girls. She thanked the CCC for providing free four-week training to the students of the community college from 2004 onwards. Two hundred and twenty-five students from nine batches benefited by the counselling classes, she said. K.M. Ramanujam, former Member of the State Planning Commission and a beneficiary of the counselling programme in CCC spoke. Students of the 145th course, Nguljathan Haoki of Manipur, Philomena Kanagaraj of Tamil Nadu and Meghana Bose of U.P. gave a feedback of the course. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/christian-counselling-centre-completes-44-years-of-service/artic le5074456.ece -- -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mental Health Advocacy (News 'N Views) India" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/MhaNewsViewsIndia?hl=en ------------- Affiliated Groups : MENTAL HEALTH ADVOCACY INDIA [email protected] Discussions on mental health law / policy / plan monitoring / human rights etc [email protected] India-specific news and views related to mental health [email protected] Information and support to carers of people with mental health issues [email protected] Mutual support and sharing of experiential knowledge, skills and social learning amongst peers --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Mental Health Advocacy (News 'N Views) India" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
