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Marine Parade Family Service Centre (MPFSC) is looking for volunteers to train as cyber counsellors. They are running a online youth chat counselling program called 'metoyou'.
Their website is: http://www.metoyou.org.sg/index.php
Volunteers would need to undergo a selection interview to determine suitability. And selected candidates will undergo free training in basic counselling skills.
The requirements is as such:
1. Volunteers must be at least 21 years old
2. To be able to commit at least 1 year after training (once per week - during weekdays from 2-6pm @ MPFSC)
3. Must complete all training - starting 6 April to 21 May.
Half days (9.30 - 12.30)
6 Apr 2010 (Tue)
9 Apr 2010 (Fri)
13 Apr 2010 (Tue)
16 Apr 2010 (Fri)
20 Apr 2010 (Tue)
23 Apr 2010 (Fri)
30 Apr 2010 (Fri)
4 May 2010 (Tue) - (9.15 - 12.15)
14 May 2010 (Fri)
21 May 2010 (Fri)
Full day (9.15-12.15 & 1.15-4.15)
7 May 2010 (Fri)
11 May 2010 (Tue)
On completion of the 4 modules, a Certificate of Attendance will be awarded after fulfilling 100 hours of Cyber-Counselling. The volunteer will be certified as a Cyber-Counsellor (Para-Counsellor) which is accredited by Marine Parade Family Service Centre after a year practise on-line.
Anyone interested, please email <[email protected]>
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20090928-170388.html
Mon, Sep 28, 2009
The Straits Times
Wanted: Online counsellors for youths
By Eisen Teo
AS A counselling triage of sorts, the website www.metoyou.org.sg is a hit. It gets troubled youths to open up on their own turf - cyberspace.
The nine-year-old site, staffed by trained counsellors from the Marine Parade Family Service Centre, reaches as many as 7,000 teens from five secondary schools. The service has already logged 2,215 chats this year, and 3,149 chats for the whole of last year.
Now, it needs more volunteers to broaden its reach. They nip in the bud minor concerns, while persuading more troubled youths to stump up the courage to seek face-to-face professional help.
Sixty per cent of chats revolve around relationship issues, be it with friends, the opposite sex or parents. Another 20 per cent involve school-related stress.
Schools can sign up for the service for a minimum of one year for a confidential, nominal fee, said the service centre.
The cyber counsellors have years of experience and guarantee anonymity. Students get their own user names and passwords, allowing the self-conscious ones a way to get help.
The centre's general manager Han Yah Yee, 37, said: 'With an online platform, youths feel safer and are more willing to talk.
'While many programmes are focused on helping youths in trouble solve their problems, metoyou reaches out to them even before their problems become serious.'
Schools such as Damai and Bedok Town secondary schools noted that even previously tight-lipped students now visit their counsellors.
Mr Deepak Chugani, 35, a school counsellor with Bedok Town for the last four years, noted that the number of walk-ins has tripled since his school took up metoyou at the start of 2007.
Metoyou has logged more chats from the school too - 438 chats this year, compared with 289 in 2007.
Students like Harry (not his real name), 14, find the service a blessing. Once a week, while his parents are at work, the Secondary 2 student logs on and unburdens himself, talking about disputes with friends or his loneliness. He spends between 30 minutes and an hour talking to a counsellor he knows only by 'avatar' and nickname.
He feels 'way better' afterwards. 'Unlike my parents, the friendly counsellors understand me and give me so many solutions for me to choose from to solve my problems.
'This is an amazing service for shy people out there,' he said, adding that more of his peers should use it.
The site operates from Monday to Friday, from 2pm to 6pm, with two to five volunteers manning terminals in a small, cosy anteroom at the centre.
In all, 20 volunteers are on the roster, and each serves at least one shift of four hours a week. Volunteers must undergo up to 144 hours of in-house practical and theory training by two senior full-time counsellors at the centre. Only after two months of lessons and passing a final exam do they become cyber counsellors.
Volunteer yourself!
Their website is: http://www.metoyou.org.sg/index.php
Volunteers would need to undergo a selection interview to determine suitability. And selected candidates will undergo free training in basic counselling skills.
The requirements is as such:
1. Volunteers must be at least 21 years old
2. To be able to commit at least 1 year after training (once per week - during weekdays from 2-6pm @ MPFSC)
3. Must complete all training - starting 6 April to 21 May.
Half days (9.30 - 12.30)
6 Apr 2010 (Tue)
9 Apr 2010 (Fri)
13 Apr 2010 (Tue)
16 Apr 2010 (Fri)
20 Apr 2010 (Tue)
23 Apr 2010 (Fri)
30 Apr 2010 (Fri)
4 May 2010 (Tue) - (9.15 - 12.15)
14 May 2010 (Fri)
21 May 2010 (Fri)
Full day (9.15-12.15 & 1.15-4.15)
7 May 2010 (Fri)
11 May 2010 (Tue)
On completion of the 4 modules, a Certificate of Attendance will be awarded after fulfilling 100 hours of Cyber-Counselling. The volunteer will be certified as a Cyber-Counsellor (Para-Counsellor) which is accredited by Marine Parade Family Service Centre after a year practise on-line.
Anyone interested, please email <[email protected]>
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20090928-170388.html
Mon, Sep 28, 2009
The Straits Times
Wanted: Online counsellors for youths
By Eisen Teo
AS A counselling triage of sorts, the website www.metoyou.org.sg is a hit. It gets troubled youths to open up on their own turf - cyberspace.
The nine-year-old site, staffed by trained counsellors from the Marine Parade Family Service Centre, reaches as many as 7,000 teens from five secondary schools. The service has already logged 2,215 chats this year, and 3,149 chats for the whole of last year.
Now, it needs more volunteers to broaden its reach. They nip in the bud minor concerns, while persuading more troubled youths to stump up the courage to seek face-to-face professional help.
Sixty per cent of chats revolve around relationship issues, be it with friends, the opposite sex or parents. Another 20 per cent involve school-related stress.
Schools can sign up for the service for a minimum of one year for a confidential, nominal fee, said the service centre.
The cyber counsellors have years of experience and guarantee anonymity. Students get their own user names and passwords, allowing the self-conscious ones a way to get help.
The centre's general manager Han Yah Yee, 37, said: 'With an online platform, youths feel safer and are more willing to talk.
'While many programmes are focused on helping youths in trouble solve their problems, metoyou reaches out to them even before their problems become serious.'
Schools such as Damai and Bedok Town secondary schools noted that even previously tight-lipped students now visit their counsellors.
Mr Deepak Chugani, 35, a school counsellor with Bedok Town for the last four years, noted that the number of walk-ins has tripled since his school took up metoyou at the start of 2007.
Metoyou has logged more chats from the school too - 438 chats this year, compared with 289 in 2007.
Students like Harry (not his real name), 14, find the service a blessing. Once a week, while his parents are at work, the Secondary 2 student logs on and unburdens himself, talking about disputes with friends or his loneliness. He spends between 30 minutes and an hour talking to a counsellor he knows only by 'avatar' and nickname.
He feels 'way better' afterwards. 'Unlike my parents, the friendly counsellors understand me and give me so many solutions for me to choose from to solve my problems.
'This is an amazing service for shy people out there,' he said, adding that more of his peers should use it.
The site operates from Monday to Friday, from 2pm to 6pm, with two to five volunteers manning terminals in a small, cosy anteroom at the centre.
In all, 20 volunteers are on the roster, and each serves at least one shift of four hours a week. Volunteers must undergo up to 144 hours of in-house practical and theory training by two senior full-time counsellors at the centre. Only after two months of lessons and passing a final exam do they become cyber counsellors.
Volunteer yourself!
