Pro-Social Peer Moderator Program Conducted for over 100 Children from 15 Schools

Dr Samir Parikh, Director, Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences, Fortis Healthcare on Tuesday successfully conducted the Pro-Social Peer Moderator Programme, themed Media Literacy,at S.L. Raheja Fortis Hospital, Mahim. Aimed at imparting life-skills to school children and helping themtackle a plethora of social influences, the module helps in shaping healthy and adaptive behaviour in formative years.

Launched at the workshop were two innovative initiatives;‘Bully to Buddy’ – a prevention and intervention program designed to help children combat bullying experiences in schools, was launched at the workshop. AntiBullying Squad, which consists of students from each identified class and a team of teachers will lead this program in their schools. First ever national Psychology quiz – ‘Psych-ED’,designed for students of Class XI and XII, was announced. Conducted by Dr. Samir Parikh, this quiz tests students’ knowledge of Psychology and allied sciences. Phase 1 of the roll-out will be done online. 

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. This year, we have introduced two highly engaging programs – ‘Bully to Buddy’ and Psych-ED quiz’.” 

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.Pro-Social Peer Moderator Programme has been successfully running in the Delhi-NCR region for more than a decade and it has been launched in Mumbai 3 years ago, which has been extremely successful. 

Salient Features:

• 3-hour interactive sessions by Fortis’ team of mental health professionals, by use of power point presentations, posters, role plays, modeling, interactive discussions and Q&A.
• In-depth understanding for students on specific concepts and related topics for issues of concern.
• Learning and application of life skills by students to handle everyday challenges on issue of concern
• Specialized training to peer moderators to further conduct interactive sessions with other students at their school
• Training for moderator teacher to facilitate student activities in school
• Regular guidance and supervision with our experts over phone/mail
• Membership to exclusive Fortis Prosocial Peer Moderator Facebook group to enable interaction with fellow peer moderators across the country

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