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Courtney Weatherburne reporting
The Belize Counsellor Association is in the middle of a 5 day conference at the ITVET which focused on training counsellors to be better equipped in dealing with personal issues affecting our youths.

Licia Castillo, OW Tech Counsellor
"It's the first Belize School Counsellor Association conference and the purpose is to get our counselors across the country in both primary and tertiary and secondary level to give some training, share some skills and do some networking for our counsellors in Belize."

We also asked Castillo what inspired them to form the organization and what is the importance of the conference in the lives of our Belizean youth:

Licia Castillo, OW Tech Counsellor
"The reason for us doing this was because which does continuing education for teachers really didn't have a slot in there for counsellors and so some years ago as a group of us we started maybe about 4 years ago putting together training sessions for our school counsellors because what apply to teachers school counsellors are different from teachers did not apply to us, so we felt the need and then I think we've been an association for two years and so last year UB handle it with Renee being one of the people in the forefront, but this year as an association we decided that we are going to put it together."

Renee Wentz, President of The Belize School Counsellor Association told us what today's conference was about and the reaction from the counsellors.

Renee Wentz, UB, Belize School Counsellor Association
"Today part of this conference actually we have been dealing with how to setup a school counselling comprehensive program for your school. We know that many of our school counsellors are not trained in counselling or school counselling in particular and so knowing how to actually setup that program, how to collect and analyses data and then use data along with your administration in order to develop your programs and to find out what services your students need. We have also talk about the right of the child and how mandated reporting affect school counsellors what we are responsible for and including that the new CESEC law, the new trafficking law and the changes to the criminal code as it relates to sexual crimes against children. I would say that we have a good turnout, we plan for about 40 people and we've had closer to 55. So I think that people are interested in what they are getting."

Castillo anticipates considerable improvement in the manner in which counsellors address issues affecting youths.

The conference started on Monday August 4th and will conclude tomorrow.