Fortis Escorts Hospital, Jaipur conducts Pro-Social Peer Moderator program for school students

• “The program is aimed at imparting life-skills among school children to weather through social influences for a healthy and adaptive behaviour”
• A scientific and interactive workshop to prevents and reduce the negative consequences of Risky Behaviour for training senior students, teachers and counsellors from more than 20 leading schools of Rajasthan

Fortis Escorts Hospital, Jaipur on Saturday successfully conducted the Pro-Social Peer Moderator Programme, which is aimed at imparting life-skills among school children to weather plethora of social influences for a healthy and adaptive behaviour in their formative years. This year’s edition focused on major student problem: Risk Behaviour.

Risk behaviour are actions that have a high potential to be harmful and dangerous, whether they are fighting, drug use, early sexual activity, unhealthy life style patterns, bullying, road rage defiance or self -harm. The module on risk behaviour management is designed to impart skills and strategies to engage in healthy risk-taking alternatives – to identify, analyse, manage and review risks in a way that prevents and reduce the negative consequensces of risky behaviour.

To help school children combat bullying experience in schools, Dr Samir Parikh- Director, Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, Fortis Healthcare Ltd  & Ms Divya Jain, Head Psychological Science, along with Dr Tushar Kant, Consultant, Psychiatry, Fortis Escorts, Hospital, Jaipur have conducted an innovative prevention and intervention “Bully to Buddy” Programme, which is created in self-sustaining format requiring minimum support from the external experts for its continued application.

More than 20 leading Schools including DAV Sr Sec School, Apex International School, Neerja Modi School, Maharaja Sawai Bhawani Singh School, Rukmini Birla School, St. Xaviers Schools, VSPK Schools, VSI International School, Jayshree Periwal International School, Defense Public School, Delhi Public School, Scindia Kanya Vidhyalaya(Gwalior), Dolphins High School, St. Anslems School, Maharaja Sawai Mansingh Vidhyalaya, Calorx Public School, Mayo Boys College, MGD School etc Participated in this Work Shop and availed it’s benefits.

An interactive training imparted to understand the self-reflections of students on own behavioral actions related to risks through cards of distinct colors.  The focus was given on concept of risk, causes of risks, solution on risks including self-awareness, evaluating risk, express assertively, finding alternate options, safe thrill seeking, etc. Various activities were played throughout the workshop to make the learning easy and interesting. The schools were recommended to have Anti-Bullying Squad, which consists of students from each identified class and a team of teachers.

Fortis’ Pro-Social Peer Moderator program involves students, along with a teacher moderator. In every module, one team of students is trained on one particular topics to equip them with necessary life-skills. The students further use these skills to disseminate their knowledge and coping strategies to their peers, who benefit from their learning. Other topics that are covered under the Programme include Aggression Management, Risk Behaviour Management, Gender Sensitization, Study & Exam Skills etc.

 Explaining the rationale behind the Pro-Social Peer Moderator program Dr Samir Parikh said: “The Pro Social Peer Program is based on social learning theories in psychology, and attempts to channelize the power of peer influence in the right direction. It aims to utilize influence of peers to impart adaptive life skills for healthy all-round personality development. It has been proven to reduce and prevent the occurrence of problems like risk-taking behaviour, aggression & violence, substance abuse, delinquency etc. Through intensive and interactive workshops, the primary emphasis is on learning through observation, wherein the students are trained to become the role models for their peers and help other students in learning more adaptive forms of behaviour.”

 Life-skill programs have been identified as one of the key areas that can bring about a lasting change in the educational system and enhance personality of school-going children. These programs help foster growth & development, and prevent the occurrence of mental health-related and social problems. 

 “Children are our hope for a brighter tomorrow. Today’s children live in a lot more competitive environment today than ever before and so learning and developing Life-skills are becoming integral part of learning. We hope that with such skills, every child can truly make a difference and emerge as a winner in the race of life.” said Mr Prateem Tamboli, Zonal Director, Fortis Escorts Hospital, Jaipur.

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