Job Opportunity for Mental Health Counselor at Apni Shala in Mumbai

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

● Student wellbeing and learning

○ Collaborate with teachers and management to develop a school counseling program with a focus on the social-emotional development of children

○ Develop a need based SEL curriculum and support teachers to facilitate the same

○ Observation and identification of students’ social and emotional challenges

○ Conduct one-to-one or group counseling sessions with students to work on their social-emotional challenges

○ Working with students based to support their developmental needs

○ Coaching teachers to work with students having different developmental needs

○ Research, create and encourage school-wide and classroom-wide SEL practices

○ Refer students to external professionals if required

○ Regularly maintain appropriate confidential records; collect, collate and maintain student information in an online format

● Caregivers’ support:

○ Conduct caregiver awareness programs as per the needs of the school

○ Attend caregiver meetings to share about student development

○ Designing and facilitate specific meetings with caregivers in collaboration with the Social Worker or teachers

○ Collaborate and consult with caregivers, teachers, community organizations and other stakeholders

○ Plan and implement home visits with support from community development team to better understand student and family context as necessary and in accordance with safety protocols

● Teacher support:

○ Develop Social-emotional learning lessons plans for all grades with teachers

○ Lead meetings with school teachers and community development team for gaining information about observed behavior and for brainstorming strategies to support learning and wellbeing needs of students in the classroom

● Assessment:

○ Continually monitor and evaluate student’s performance, behavior, social development, and mental health in coordination with the social worker and teacher

○ Collaborate with curriculum team and R&D team towards creation of a tool for SEL assessment

○ Record and document progress on SEL competencies of individual children

○ Present students’ social and emotional development in caregiver meetings

● Professional responsibilities

○ Track and record all inventory with regards to counseling purposes with assistance from the helper and admin team at Apni Shala

○ Ensure that space and resources in the counseling space are used and maintained effectively

○ Invite and/or manage relevant volunteers/interns for SEL and/or counseling related activities

○ Build meaningful relationships with various stakeholders for advancing the organizational vision

○ Co-plan and execute school-based events with colleagues in service of children and community

○ Attend all meetings with the school team, supervision, and organizational level meetings

○ Lead one action research within the school on SEL practices each year

● Self and Peer/Team Development

○ Work towards personal and professional development (PD) goals by attending organizational PDs and other relevant workshops/courses or reading and researching on relevant themes

○ Participate in supervision meetings facilitated by your supervisor aimed at building a practice of reflection, personal and professional development

○ Contribute towards the team’s development by engaging actively in professional development opportunities, co-planning and collective work

● Organizational development

○ Participate in resource mobilisation, fundraising, advocacy, communications, culture building and other related activities as guided by the organisation

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS AND ABILITIES

● 1+ years of experience with school counselling

● Well developed understanding of Narrative practices in therapy settings

● Fluent conversational skills in Hindi and/or Marathi

● Well developed oral and written communication in English

● Understanding of child development theories and humanistic approaches to therapy

● Ability to build and nurture relationships with adult stakeholders

● Fluency in using Microsoft office, Google Apps (Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides)