TOOLS FOR TEENS

Recently, suicide had increased among school students. Four schools appealed to USM to assist them to help their students. In this regard, the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) through the Division of Industry & Community Network (DICN) took the initiative to help and educate the school students to address this problem through a project to prevent  suicide. DICN engaged psychiatrists, psychologists and counsellors to develop training modules for the program called “Tools 4 Teens” in late February.

The three modules are:

(1) Coping with Life’s Challenges
(2) Emotional Resilience
(3) Self Worth & Positive Self Talk

The project is funded by DICN, USM and received support from the Penang State Education Department to help schools in Penang. The school counsellors from all the secondary schools were invited to observe the training and they were given the “Tools 4 Teen” programme to conduct in their schools. This programme was formulated based on positive psychology. It is aimed to boost student’s emotional resilience and self-worth. 

The programme can be used for all secondary school students. The objectives of this program are as follows:

• Educate students on how to face the challenges in their life
• Transfer knowledge on self-esteem and emotional resilient to strengthen themselves

As a start, T4T has been implemented for four schools in Penang which are the SMJK Phor Tay, SMK Haji Zainul Abidin, SMJK Heng Ee and SMJK Chung Hwa Confucian. About about 550 students under went the programme and 65 school counsellors from the secondary schools were trained.