The China Children and Teenagers' Fund (CCTF) and Sinochem Holdings Corporation jointly rolled out a public welfare project titled Nurturing the Future Through Educational Assistance in Ar Horqin Banner and Linxi County of North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Pingshan County of North China's Hebei Province, and Gulang County of Northwest China's Gansu Province in May 2024.

The project aims to further improve rural students' psychological health and comprehensive competence, rally the support from all social forces for allowing children and teenagers to have access to fair, inclusive and quality education in places where Sinochem Holdings has been designated with pair-up assistance tasks, and promote the building of a systematic psychological health program integrated with wide social participation and family warmth.

Nurture Children's Heart, Make Classroom More Attracting

"Teacher Wang, when will we have another mental health class? I like it very much," asked a primary school student in Ar Horqin during a class.

The teacher, Wang Jie, said that the child's expectation gave him lots of impression and surprise because many students there didn't have an initial concept of mental health class at the very beginning.

Saren, a psychological health teacher at a primary school in Ar Horqin, also witnessed the positive changes brought by the mental health class to her students. "I can see the light in the eyes of my students at the mental health class. They have shown great awareness of engagement and cooperation, adding vibrancy to the class," she said.

During the past year, over 20 pilot schools have made full use of donated mental health textbooks, opened 622 mental health classes, provided more than 30,000 students with relevant services, and forged new momentum for rural children's healthy growth.

Strengthen Training, Shift Focus from Teaching to Accompanying

In addition to the mental health of students, the project also pays attention to the capacity building of head teachers and psychological instructors. With systematic training and continuous guidance, teachers are expected to further bolster their professional competence and skills in finding and handling mental health issues among students. So far, more than 10 training events have been held in the four areas with the participation of more than 1,000 teachers online and offline, covering mental health education, expressive art therapy, crisis intervention and psychological consultation.

"At the beginning, I didn't know what to say and how to comfort my student when the child approached me and spoke about the separation with her grandmother at the age of 5. Only till then did I realize that psychological consultation also involves understanding and listening," wrote a young teacher from Gulang in her diary.

"In the past, I thought that psychological class was only about emotional cognition and conducting questionnaires. I never expected that the sandplay therapy could enable a quiet child to express the confusion that he had never shared with anyone through the 'little figurines.' Now, I have been capable of recognizing their signals of seeking help during training sessions on crisis intervention," said a senior teacher from Linxi.

A head teacher from Pingshan agreed that each teacher can make a difference to the life of students.

Liu Zhengkui, leader of the project's expert group, said that the project aims to foster a group of teachers who can provide students with mental health education and support, and further improve the overall level of mental health education in relevant areas. The project has also built a supervision mechanism for teachers, and regularly provided case supervision, problem consultation and emotional support services to frontline teachers.

Build County-Level Mental Health Service Systems 

In the early planning period, the CCTF and Sinochem Holdings set a clear target that the project should be a systematic and long-term public welfare initiative rather than a single-point case. The four beneficiary areas have established an integrated mechanism of teachers' training and supervision, psychological courses, students' screening and warning, and psychological crisis intervention, and promoted the implementation of the project together with local departments of education and the women's federations.

"In the past, there was no additional support for schools to undertake mental health education. We have now built cross-department collaboration working mechanisms in the implementation of the project," said Lin Yu, head of Linxi Education Bureau.

Thanks to the project, Linxi has fostered a number of high-quality psychological teachers and made achievements in the further improvement of students' mental health, academic performance and living standards.

According to Wang Yuanbin, a worker with Sinochem Holdings who is tasked with a mission to support the project in Ar Horqin, local teachers have acquired solid theoretical knowledge and rich pragmatic skills, and created precise teaching approaches for students. The project has filled the gap of mental health education resources and played vital roles in promoting educational balance and protecting students' mental health.

Meanwhile, the project has promoted the building of family-school-society cooperative education mechanism, organized "Happy Family Classroom" and "Parent-Child Workshop" events, enhanced child-raising competence of families, and built families into the first defense line for students' mental health.

Set an Example for Educational Assistance in Rural Revitalization

The project has become a demonstration program for the cooperation between the CCTF and Sinochem Holdings.

The CCTF has fully leveraged its philanthropic influence and promoted the participation of psychological experts in the building of county-level scientific and practical service systems for students' mental health.

Sinochem Holdings has made full use of its resources and strengths as a State-owned enterprise, provided the project with firm support in terms of capital, talent and implementation, and dispatched excellent employees to the four areas to ensure the effective implementation of the project.

The project has explored a special mental health education assistance system featuring the participation of State-level experts, multi-department institutional guarantee, and multi-sector collaboration, showing vitality of the family-school-society cooperative education mechanism in the new era.

In the years ahead, the project will deepen the building of demonstration schools, promote standard psychological courses, create science popularization bases for mental health, hold growth camps and art festivals for children, and advance the building of family-school-society psychological support system. The CCTF and Sinochem Holdings will sum up experience, enrich the content of the project, and deliver more benefits to children and families with scientific and professional mental health education.

Just as Professor Liu said, psychological education is not about treatment but companion. It is hoped that all rural children can grow up healthily under the sun and gain understanding as well as support in difficult conditions.