Photo: Unsplash/Chris Montogomery
The Department of Education (DepEd) will be giving psychosocial support to its teachers and students a week before classes are set to open.
According to DepEd Secretary Leonor Briones, psychologists and counselors from national professional organizations will be tapped to simultaneously conduct the psychosocial sessions across the country.
The initiative, under DepEd’s Disaster Risk Reduction Management System, aims to uplift the mental wellbeing of its educators and pupils. It has been practiced even before the threat of the pandemic as a response to traumatic events such as calamities and deaths.
“Relationships are being threatened in the home, in the school,” said Briones. “There’s fear, anxiety, and there are so many unknowns so people get very anxious. If we’re anxious and afraid, how much more for a child, especially for a child who has not been in school for months?”
Briones added, “Everywhere you turn, there is criticism – it seems that you’re not doing anything right,” she said. “It helps if there’s sharing and we have to accept and deal with this phenomena and look at it as rationally as possible – as trained academics and educators.”
DepEd Undersecretary Alain Pascua noted that the activities would also tackle other health-related topics and would be done in coordination with schools’ and divisions’ guidance counselors.
