MSU's social work faculty to have counsellor training institute

VADODARA: Social work faculty in M S University will now have a counsellor training institute for capacity building of HIV and AIDS counsellors. The faculty is one of two in the state selected as sub-sub-recipients (SSR) by Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) for the project funded by Global Fund, an international agency based in Geneva. This centre will not only facilitate training programmes, but will also conduct research works in the area of HIV and AIDS.
The centre, which will complete its first phase in September, has trained close to 200 resource persons as well as identified 17 master trainers in the state. "Earlier, we used to conduct programmes, but did not have premises to hold these meets. Now, with the financial support from Global Fund, we could set up a permanent facility at the faculty itself," capacity building officer of Saksham Dharmishta Nanavati said.
This project is a macro endeavour in training and capacity building of professionals in the arena of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria so as to make significant changes in development indicators and discourse. Global Fund for the first time has tied up with universities across the country for capacity building of counsellors. The principal recipient in India is TISS that has selected social work faculty in MSU and Gujarat Vidyapith as SSRs for this project.
In the first phase, the faculty was given a grant for developing infrastructure, human resource and library. In the next phase, funds will be allocated to set up residential facility.
"We host regular training sessions for counsellors at the centre. These sessions are more streamlined where along with technical details soft skills of participants are also developed. We help them on ways to conduct counselling sessions, method of documentation and teach them to form linkages with other resource persons," Nanavati added.
Nanavati also shared that in future they plan to conduct research in areas which require attention. "Along with training, research is an important element in this project. During the training sessions we learn of the problems faced by the counsellors and also peculiar cases. Based on these discussions, we can undertake research which will give us an idea of the present trends. This will also help in updating training modules," she said.
darshana.chaturvedi@timesgroup.com