By Dr Oswald R Thomas

Young people in Antigua and Barbuda need to be nurtured, guided, and coached, by exemplary leadership to become the next generation of parents, workers, leaders, and productive citizens. They desperately need support and opportunities during childhood/ adolescence, a period of rapid growth and change. Our children and adolescents face unique and diverse challenges, both personally and developmentally, that impact academic achievements, unlike years gone by.

Dr Oswald R Thomas

The primary school years are times when children begin to develop their academic self-identity and their feelings of competence and confidence as young learners. It is a time when children acquire attitudes toward school, self, peers, social groups and family. We either destroy our children by bad example we set for them or by the sins of our omissions. The need is grave, I mean extremely urgent for Antigua and Barbuda as well as other Caribbean countries to develop a comprehensive school counseling programs. This will provide education, prevention and intervention services. When integrated in to all aspects of our children’s lives, such a program is critical to removing barriers to learning and academic achievements.

Unlike primary school, secondary school is the final transition into adulthood and the world of work. As young people being the process of leaving parents and exploring and defining and redefining their independence, they need adult supervision at a different level. It is well documented that the teenage years are some of the most difficult years in the life of teenagers, it is a time when they are searching for meaning and purpose, it is a time when they have strong feelings to identify with and form bonds, it is a time of mix feelings about they their sexual identity, developmentally, it is their most rebellious years.

Gone are the days when a whole village raised and praised children. In those days, grandmothers were older, unlike now where the average grandparent is forty something and just beginning to live their life. Added to this is the challenge that most parents are single mothers, the older child, whom most often are just 12-15 years old, find themselves playing the role of parent instead of enjoying their teenage years. Our young people, like their counterparts around the world should be living in an exciting time, with an increasingly diverse and mobile society, new technologies, and expanding opportunities and striving after big dreams and higher ideals.

Instead, Antigua and Barbuda’s children and youth are worried about being raped, as young as age five. They worry about been shot, stabbed, or worse, they worry about being forced in to illegal activities way beyond their years. If preventions and interventions do not become part of the lives of our youth then, they will end up behind bars. They will find hope in gangs and other antisocial behaviors. These activities are death-inviting at best and go against their personal growth and healthy development.

The Ministry of Education needs to hire, train, and appoint without delay, school counselors, and it must do so with the context of a comprehensive program not in a piecemeal way. A school counselor is a professional educator with a mental health perspective who understands and can respond to the issues and concerns faced by a diverse student body, school counselors do not work in isolation; but they are a part of total but transformational educational program.

The school counselors work with all stakeholders to deliver programs and services to help students achieve success in school through classroom guidance, academic skills support, organizational, study and test-taking skills and post-secondary planning to address pain. They assist students with the application process to enter college, career planning, education in understanding self and others, coping strategies, peer relationships and effective social skills to prevent disaster. They employ communication, problem-solving, decision-making, conflict resolution, career awareness and the world of work to help in build up of a well rounded person. The school counselors, along with children and youths, explore substance abuse education, goal setting, education in understanding of self, including strengths and weaknesses, individual and small-group counseling, individual/family/school crisis intervention, peer facilitation to heal wounds.

While Ministers of Education over the years, talk about the important strides they and the ministry have made in class size reduction, higher academic standards, accountability and teacher preparation, the school counselor is woefully missing from this list of achievements. This important link in all these initiatives is to improve student learning, provide counseling programs in three domains; academic, career and personal/social.

These services and programs are designed to help student resolve emotional, violence prevention/safe schools and communities, social or behavioral problems. School counselors stand between heaven and hell. They help young people develop a better sense of direction. Thus effective counseling programs are important to the school climate and a crucial element in improving student achievement.

Let our nation act now to engage our children and youth. Research is ripe that our children have many problems, issues and concerns that they grapple with on a daily basis. They too need some one to express their deepest fears to in a non judgmental environment. They too need to receive affirmation for their hopes and desires. They too need to see positive modeling. Their spirits need positive and uplifting inspiration that will give them a chance in life. It was once said by the former First Lady of the United States, Eleanor Roosevelt, “Learn from the mistakes of other because you will not live long enough to make all the mistakes for your self.”

Dr Oswald R Thomas is a Certified and Registered Clinical Hypnotherapist/Psychotherapist with the American Board of Hypnotherapy, the International Association of Counselors and Therapists, and the International Board of Medical and Dental Association. He is founder of the Thomas Center Human Development, Inc. and serves on Bronx Mental Health Committee, served on Community Board #5 in the Bronx, and the Bronx Neighborhood Planning Committee as Chair of the Youth Committee. With a PhD in Psychology, a Master’s in Public Administration, and a Bachelor’s of Professional Studies in Human Services, Dr Thomas is a counseling therapist/Behaviorist, and Professor at Metropolitan College of New York. Email: tcfldrthomas@gmail.com