PATTAM program adapted for Juveniles

Earlier this year, we received a request from the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) to provide individual and family counselling for juveniles in conflict with the law. Being aware of the huge need for the youngsters, we explored the possibility of adapting the PATTAM programme to suit this age group.  After making adjustments to the programme, on 13th March 2021 we launched PATTAM at the Government Observation Home for Boys in Kellys, Chennai. Hon’ble Mr Justice P.N.Prakash inaugurated the project.

The programme was adapted to deal with the top two triggers for juvenile delinquency – addiction and dysfunctional families. To address these, we established a counselling centre on the campus of the Observation home, Kellys, Chennai.  Here, our counsellors, on the order of the JJ board, meet juveniles individually and with families, for counselling sessions.

In addition to counselling, we engage the boys in the observation home at Kellys and Madurai with interactive sessions from Monday to Friday, where the topics are focused on Understanding Self, Goal setting, Decision Making and Handling Emotions. So far, we have been able to help 100 boys through counselling. The counsellors do a minimum of five sessions with each boy and additional sessions are conducted depending on the needs of the child and the family. Apart from these psychological interventions, we engage boys with life skills through sports for two hours in the evenings from Monday to Friday. The boys are engaged with sports activities and the lessons for life they can learn from that sport.