Sandra Thompson-Assan

I am a Counseling Psychologist and a Researcher. I have worked for 7 years as a counselor and International Baccalaureate Diploma (IBDP) Psychology teacher at Tema International School, Ghana. As a counselor, I assist student and staff members with wide range of challenges that impact their academics and work output respectively. Dyslexia, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, partial Amnesia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panics, Presentation jitters among others, are some of the commonly encountered challenges in my counseling sessions. Together with the students and staff, we are able to make informed decisions for the future. Additionally, I empower persons (i.e. clients) I assist, with therapies, to resort to, in the wake of challenges. 

As an IBDP Psychology educator, I teach IB1 and IB2 Biological, Cognitive, Sociocultural, Psychology of human relationships and Abnormality. Thus, I assist students to understand the aforementioned factors as interplaying to determine human behaviour. To further comprehend the nature of human behaviour, I guide students to engage with literature and integrate acquired knowledge in their essays. 

My dual tasking ability has aided my communication, writing and research skills. I am very articulate in my counseling sessions and during teaching. I guide students to read prior to responding to to a question or writing an essay. With my support, students are able to always demonstrate clarity and organization in their write ups to gain appreciable scores. 

I have devoted research days where I avail a platform for students to read and share their struggles in research. Students are supported to understand how to conduct research, summarize journals they have read, paraphrase, cite their source of information and merge ideas to convey new knowledge into a comprehensive information, aiming at explaining the underlining cause of human behaviour. Students develop independent and collaborative skills during this process. 

A major concern I noticed in students’ essays is "critical thinking". I resolved this issue by systematically walking them through how to identify strengths, limitations and methodological issues in articles they read. As well, I remind them of the relevance in considering ethical frameworks applied in any research work. This strategy has been helpful to my students and they pride themselves in their ability to respect other perspectives since each article presents with shortcomings and there is the need to factor other ideas. 

I acknowledge that irrespective of measures put in place, some students with learning challenges would find it difficult to comprehend lessons taught. In this regard, I have formed 'academic support' team comprising of one other psychologist and representatives from each department. The team focuses more on the strengths and weakness of such students and adopt more extensive measures to help them cope.

An additional key role I play is ensuring staff wellbeing. I belief that employees' mental, emotional, psychological and social wellbeing is paramount to their output. I therefore organize periodic workshops to extensively discuss employees' wellbeing and guide them with skills necessary to coping. Depending on the causes of the instability in their wellbeing, I collaborate with seasoned professions in the related field to help resolve more challenging concerns. During such workshops, employees are similarly educated on developmental stages (especially adolescence) and how to identify students who are not mentally healthy.

Among students, I introduce peer buddies who are selected across grades to help new students settle in and serve as first emotional aiders for their classmates and refer cases beyond their capabilities to me. These buddies receive training prior to the beginning of each academic year and have monthly debriefing meetings.

The presence of intermittent staff wellness workshop and peer buddies, ensure mental healthiness of the entire school and aid in achieving a unify goal.

My 4 years experience in South Africa has also informed me of the need to live, collaborate and work with persons from varying cultures. I am able to understand cultural expectations and practices, when working with students and employees in my session or classroom. I give each person the opportunity to express their views from a cultural perspective and also embrace that of others cultural beliefs, values, norms and practices, to live harmoniously with All.

 I am a Counseling Psychologist and a Researcher. I have worked for 7 years as a counselor and International Baccalaureate Diploma (IBDP) Psychology teacher at Tema International School, Ghana. As a counselor, I assist student and staff members with wide range of challenges that impact their academics and work output respectively. Dyslexia, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, partial Amnesia, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panics, Presentation jitters among others, are some of the commonly encountered challenges in my counseling sessions. Together with the students and staff, we are able to make informed decisions for the future. Additionally, I empower persons (i.e. clients) I assist, with therapies, to resort to, in the wake of challenges. 

As an IBDP Psychology educator, I teach IB1 and IB2 Biological, Cognitive, Sociocultural, Psychology of human relationships and Abnormality. Thus, I assist students to understand the aforementioned factors as interplaying to determine human behaviour. To further comprehend the nature of human behaviour, I guide students to engage with literature and integrate acquired knowledge in their essays. 

My dual tasking ability has aided my communication, writing and research skills. I am very articulate in my counseling sessions and during teaching. I guide students to read prior to responding to to a question or writing an essay. With my support, students are able to always demonstrate clarity and organization in their write ups to gain appreciable scores. 

I have devoted Fridays as research days where I avail a platform for students to read and share their struggles in research. Students are supported to understand how to conduct research, summarize journals they have read, paraphrase, cite their source of information and merge ideas to convey new knowledge into a comprehensive information, aiming at explaining the underlining cause of human behaviour. Students develop independent and collaborative skills during this process. 

A major concern I noticed in students’ essays is "critical thinking". I resolved this issue by systematically walking them through how to identify strengths, limitations and methodological issues in articles they read. As well, I remind them of the relevance in considering ethical frameworks applied in any research work. This strategy has been helpful to my students and they pride themselves in their ability to respect other perspectives since each article presents with shortcomings and there is the need to factor other ideas. 

I acknowledge that irrespective of measures put in place, some students with learning challenges would find it difficult to comprehend lessons taught. In this regard, I have formed 'academic support' team comprising of one other psychologist and representatives from each department. The team focuses more on the strengths and weakness of such students and adopt more extensive measures to help them cope.

An additional key role I play is ensuring staff wellbeing. I belief that employees' mental, emotional, psychological and social wellbeing is paramount to their output. I therefore organize periodic workshops to extensively discuss employees' wellbeing and guide them with skills necessary to coping. Depending on the causes of the instability in their wellbeing, I collaborate with seasoned professions in the related field to help resolve more challenging concerns. During such workshops, employees are similarly educated on developmental stages (especially adolescence) and how to identify students who are not mentally healthy.

Among students, I introduce peer buddies who are selected across grades to help new students settle in and serve as first emotional aiders for their classmates and refer cases beyond their capabilities to me. These buddies receive training prior to the beginning of each academic year and have monthly debriefing meetings.

The presence of intermittent staff wellness workshop and peer buddies, ensure mental healthiness of the entire school and aid in achieving a unify goal.

My 4 years experience in South Africa has also informed me of the need to live, collaborate and work with persons from varying cultures. I am able to understand cultural expectations and practices, when working with students and employees in my session or classroom. I give each person the opportunity to express their views from a cultural perspective and also embrace that of others cultural beliefs, values, norms and practices, to live harmoniously with All. 

I have a PhD in Psychology, MPhil in Guidance and Counseling and M.A Psychology.