When the city of Ruzhou, Henan province held its first educational psychotherapist training seminar, on July 22, in the Party school's youth counseling center, Lian Wujie, one of the participants, described his own feelings to the others at the opening ceremony.

Lian opened by saying, 'I hope I can gain a deeper understanding of education and teaching methods and student psychology through this training, and I believe that I can increase my pedagogical skills a lot and better guide students in their future work and their mental health and help them grow up happier.'

The session was organized by the civilization office, city board of education, and the city's youth mental health counseling center and was designed to increase both teachers' and teenagers' mental health awareness, especially among primary and secondary school students, and raise the teachers' coaching level and pedagogical skills to develop professional, scientific, and standardized mental health education procedures. Nearly 40 teachers took part in the training, from primary and secondary schools and nursery schools across the city.

The training lasts three months and afterwards the participants will take a national qualifying exam, with those who pass getting a 'National psychological consultant qualification' from the Human Resources and Social Security Ministry. To ensure the effectiveness of the training，professional staff will draw up a detailed scientific teaching plan for the trainees and help build students files.

A representative of the Ruzhou board of education and sports commented, 'Mental health education is an important part of basic education and it is something that badly needs strengthening. It is a part of teachers' summer vacation higher education and I hope it can help them understand primary and secondary student psychology more systematically, and raise their level of psychological health education to help students grow in a healthy way and schools to develop harmoniously.'

Edited by Roger Bradshaw