At Pan-Asia International School, school counselors are friendly adults who are professionally trained to actively listen to concerns of students, parents, teachers, and school administrators. Within their competence, our school counselors provide guidance lessons, individual counseling, and build a referral network of community resources for students. Besides, they help teachers, parents, and school administrators have better understanding of student’s challenges and needs. From this understanding, we build a strong team to provide the best support for our students.
- Guidance lessons are preventive counseling providing essential skills for life or general knowledge about mental health. They are taught in class for a larger audience. The topics presented in previous years include “Anti-bullying”, “Curiosity”, “Multiple intelligence”, “Social support”.
- Individual counseling is reactive counseling providing for students who need extra support than guidance lessons. What is discussed in individual counseling sessions is kept confidential strictly according to the Ethical code of counseling. Individual counseling is reactive counseling providing for students who need extra support than guidance lessons. What is discussed in individual counseling sessions is kept confidential strictly according to the Ethical code of counseling.
Students, teachers, and parents of PAIS, if you have some concerns and need listening ears, please do not hesitate to contact our school counselors.
Meet the School Counselor - Weekly online assembly on Friday mornings
The Covid-19 has forced our school to be physically closed, but cannot force our school counselors to stop providing support for the mental health of our students and teachers. Every Friday morning, Ms. Bea, our school counselor conducts a 15-minutes assembly to share short, simple but practical mental health knowledge and skills with the whole school. These scientific-based knowledge and skills are necessary to maintain good mental health of our students and teachers during this social-distancing period.
Topics were presented from the middle of March until now including “How to deal with uncertainty”, “Being safe only”, “Examination anxiety during Covid-19 pandemic”, “What is stress”, “Explanatory style”, “Practicing gratitude”. Coming topics may be “Sleep hygiene” which will help our students and teachers understand the importance of quality sleep to our brains as well as daily function; “Learning to relax” providing more skills to manage stress; and “Be fair to our brain” providing proper understanding about the nature of mental illnesses, so they will not hesitate to seek for professional help when they or people around them have mental illnesses which is much more popular than what the public think.
To contact our school counselor, please visit her office inside the Primary library or send her an email to beatriz.q@pais.ac.th to set an appointment at your convenient time.
Online guidance counseling
Albert Einstein said “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”. This quote is so true to Pan-Asia International School, school counseling team. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, it was very difficult to find time for guidance counseling because of the tight schedule of study and extra activities of our students. When the school was closed, the learning time of our students was shortened to prevent “Zoom fatigue” as well as physical health problems due to staring at screens for a very long time. Our school counselor team has grasped this opportunity to provide guidance counseling for students from grade 6 to 11 in the afternoon. The topics were decided by the school counselors and students’ requests.
Each guidance counseling session is about 30 to 50 minutes. This reasonable amount of time allows students to share and discuss their experience and opinions. Additionally, the knowledge and skills are also discussed in more details compared to short whole school assemblies. From the middle of March until now, the topics were taught including “How to deal with uncertainty”, “How to deal with stress”, and “Time management skills”. Coming topics may be “Demystifying emotions & emotional regulation skills”, “How to deal with conflicts”.
Individual counseling
According to feedback from our parents and students, most of our students are doing well at home during this social distancing period. However, there are some students who have faced more challenges due to their mental illnesses or complicated concerns. Therefore, our school counselor team provides online individual counseling sessions to needed students via Zoom and Google Meet in the afternoon. Meetings with parents to discuss how to support students’ well-being is also done online with satisfactory results.
Although online counseling cannot entirely replace face-to-face sessions, up to this point, both school counselors and students have enjoyed their online sessions. Covid-19 and distance cannot stop us from providing and receiving care as well as support.
Students, teachers, and parents of Pan-Asia International School, if you are looking for listening ears, our school counselors sincerely welcome you to contact them.