Coach for IndiaSocial and Emotional Well-being for all

The conceptCoach 4 India will work to select, train and

supervise psychological coaches in schools/ colleges within India

The Coach 4 India will be registered as a non-profit enterprise

Initially limited to Pune , but will scale up within India in subsequent years

Dedicated to bringing positive education to the masses

The needStudents entering workforce:

Lack socio-emotional skills that help manage one’s own emotions as well as enable them to collaborate effectively with others.

Are unengaged at the workplace as they are not aware of their strengths and are not using them on a daily basis.

Are psychologically vulnerable and not resilient enough to withstand pressures of the workplace and have a healthy work life balance.

Scope for improvement School and college experience could be used

to build leadership skills especially socio emotional learning leading to development of soft skills.

Awareness and deployment of strengths early on, leads to engagement in studies/ work and also helps in making a wiser career choice.

Skills like resilience and self control can be taught early on and lead to not only positive academic and work outcomes but all round positive life outcomes.

Sample psychological research that is changing the face of educationMarshmallow effect: self regulation at age 4

leads to multiple positive life outcomes years later.Pygmalion effect: the power of self fulfilling

prophecies and having a positive view of students abilities.

Growth Mindset: the utility of believing in the malleability and incremental nature of ability.

Snowden effect: positive affect and appraisals lead to a longer and healthier life.

Grit: grit trumps talent/IQ in predicting important life outcomes.

What we can do to prepare students for the futureTeach students academic and cognitive as

well as socio-emotional and non-cognitive skills. This includes self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy and social skills.

Focus on psychological health and resilience.Character strengths like self-control, grit,

optimism, zest can be taught and should be taught in schools.

Leadership skills are a part of curriculum from the start.

The need for a psychological coachPsychological health is not just an absence of disease but

the all round flourishing of an individual.Preventive positive psychology based interventions have

been robustly shown to buffer children against future stressors.

Just like a sports or physical activity coach is required for optimal physical and developmental well being, time has come to have psychological coaches in school settings for the full flourishing of children.

Instead of generalist teachers focusing on socio-emotional learning, strengths development etc, it would be nice to have a specialist coach focused on these aspects.

The rationale behind this bold moveAs per latest research summarized by International

Positive Education Network (IPEN), education is two stranded like the DNA: academics as well as character strengths and well-being making equal contributions to achievements and valued outcomes in life.

Not much focus in current school settings on character strengths and well being or the psychological aspects.

Teachers ill-equipped to handle this additional responsibility.

Psychologists and lay motivated people can be trained in positive psychology to provide such services at low costs.

The delivery model A hybrid of Teach For India (academic focus)

and The Future Project (more psychological in concept) – recruit, train and place mentors using Teach for India model , but let their role be more of like ‘dream directors’ of The Future Project.

Target schools with insufficient resources and at risk population for placement of coaches/mentors.

Each such school has at least one coach/mentor, sponsored by a corporate via CSR initiatives.

Delivery model elaboratedCollege graduates/ employees on sabbatical

from their companies, are recruited and trained in positive psychology interventions. They are then placed for minimum one year with a low resource school.

Each identified school has one or more mentors and they take periods of all classes similar to a sports period wherein different character strengths, say creativity, are worked on.

The curriculum mentors will teachMentors will administer VIA-IS to measure

strengths of each student and work with each student individually and in groups focusing on their top strengths.

Typical strengths useful for academic achievement and positive life outcomes like grit, perseverance, optimism, zest, self-control are taught to all children.

The curriculum is adapted from proven SEL curriculum deployed at US as well as Indian schools and adapted to Indian context.

The logistics The mentors placed in low income schools

that cannot afford them will be paid by Coach for India. For normal schools, the services may be charged.

Coach For India will in turn depend on donations from foundations, or funds from corporate social responsibility initiatives of companies to fund its staff and mentors for low-income schools.

Outcomes of initiative will be clearly measured and the sponsoring organization will be able to measure the impact they made.

Benefits to brands / corporate sponsoring thisA novel one-of-a-kind initiative. Positive

psychology based interventions are being rapidly deployed and will lead to mass benefits in all sphere – including education.

Impact is readily measurable and quantifiable.

Those brands that want to be seen as doing something to prevent the psychological health issues in India likely to benefit most. Brands can also absorb future leaders that will come out of these schools / colleges.

Rollout of program 36 modules for each class, spread over 36

weeks. A dedicated period of one to one and half

hour per classroom per week in analogy with a sports or arts & crafts period.

Neither the students , nor the schools will not need to pay anything for low income schools, but the sponsoring corporate will pay on a per class basis to faculty involved.

The credibilitySandeep Gautam (founder ) 16+ years of telecom industry experience

with 10 + years in management.Gallup certified strengths coach (2014)Global representative India for International

Positive Education Network (IPEN)B.Tech from IITD (1998), EPLM from IIMC

(2013) , Foundations of Positive Psychology from UPenn( 2010)

Amongst world’s top psychology bloggers (since 2006)

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