Teachers in the school banks

One of the two pillars of the work of ICS is parenting and upbringing. The influence of parents on the development of children is obviously big, but also teachers largely contribute to the welfare and future of children. To improve contact between parents and teachers and to make sure less children leave the school banks early ICS has started the Lunch and Learn programme for teachers.

Lunch and Learn programme needs to prevent school dropout

During lunch break an ICS facilitator visits the teachers team of a school to discuss, in five different sessions, the development of children and the bottlenecks that can occur. The topics that are being discussed are, among others, positive forms of discipline and how to prevent school drop out and stimulate further education. Furthermore, teachers are made more aware of signs of childmaltreatment and how to follow them up adequatly.

The children are being trained in life skills at the same time. In three different sessions attention is paid to self awareness and interaction with others. Themes that are being addressed are positive communication and conflict resolution but also critical thinking and decision making. So that children know who they are, what they are worth and how they can live together with others in harmony.

This programme is supplementary to our Skilful Parenting training that supports parents. A life in poverty demands a lot from people. Parents often feel powerless, they communicate poorly with one another and in most cases children are the victims in this: they do not go to school (anymore) and experience physical punishments on a regular basis. ICS trains parents not because we know it all but because we realise that the circumstances in which parents have to bring up their children are far from easy. Parents have little to no education and copy the parenting techniques they have experienced themselves. By investigating new ways of upbringing, organising role plays and bring the topic up as a discusssion they feel supported.

The effect of the teachers programme at schools is directly visible: at one of the participating schools 43 children quitted school in 2015, while in 2016 that number reduced to only one. ICS gave the training in the past year at 50 different schools to 979 teachers in total.