The Belagavi Zilla Panchayat organised a counselling session for wardens, caretakers and teachers in government hostels and residential schools to prevent suicides of young students on their premises.
Resource persons spoke at length about the stress faced by teenagers and how to deal with them.
Sharada Kote, counsellor, spoke about the way students tackle depression, inferiority complex and homesickness.
She urged caretakers to develop empathy towards children and help them tide through the crisis they face at different stages of hostel life. She gave examples of how community living can build fraternity and strengthen the character of the children, if they were to be guided properly. Otherwise, children can suffer from various problems like maladjustment, bullying and induced inefficiency, she said.
She asked each caretaker to turn counsellor, asking them to adopt them as if they were their own children.
Bhimsen Takkalaki, psychiatrist from KLE JN Medical college, said the focus of psychological counselling needs to be a friendly and intimate process.
“There is a lot of stigma about psychiatry in India. This has to be battled by sending a message that this is a part of personality development and not any taboo treatment. It is important to make the students feel that they are not abnormal,” he said.
