The role of the Amanda Bezzina History of

The role of the Amanda Bezzina

History of the PSD Association Formed February 2003 First President: Mr. Kenneth Camilleri PRESENT COMMITTEE President- Ms Amanda Bezzina Vice-President- Mr Ryan Portelli Secretary- Ms Bernardette Azzopardi, Ms Tiziana Bugeja PRO- Ms Elysia Attard Treasurer- Ms Myriam Peresso, Dr Ruth Falzon Members: Ms Maud Muscat, Ms Sarah Jane Pulis and Ms Miriam Cristina

Aims To safeguard the interests of the PSD Teachers To disseminate information about current themes relevant to PSD To act as a support group for all PSD Teachers To encourage activities dealing with PSD To provide a website that can be used by PSD Teachers To have a resource centre for PSD Teachers

Main targets Organizes meetings, conferences, discussions and other activities that interest PSD Teachers Disseminates books, videos and software regarding PSD Produces material that can be used for PSD lessons

Socio-emotional learning

Conferences 2009 -- “Entertainment or addiction. . . Where do youth cross the line? ” 2010 -- “Should I say that? Sexual Health Related Issues” 2011 -- “The Media and I: Who is in control? ” 2013 -- “Feel and Achieve. A training seminar on emotional literacy” 2014 – “Plan and succeed --- a training seminar for employability”

Conference – Emotional Literacy

Programme conference Workshop 1 Using Drama for Emotional Literacy Workshop 2 Using Dance for Emotional Literacy Workshop 3 Agenzija Zghazagh and Emotional Literacy Workshop 4 Autism and Emotional Literacy Workshop 5 Intellectual impairment and Emotional Literacy Workshop 6 Creativity Media and Emotional Literacy Workshop 7 Dyslexia and Emotional Literacy Workshop 8 Kif il-kitba tgħinek tgħaraf lilek u lil oħrajn

Participation in NSCOPSE conferences

Articles in newspaper Letter to the editor in reaction to the article ‘Mum, dad, can we talk about sex? ’ on Friday, 17 th July 2009 6 th December 2010 - Times of Malta – PSD teachers hit back at lack of preparedness charge 20 th March 2011 - Times of Malta - PSD Day at St Margaret College Input in articles for the Times of Malta about PSD and promoting the PSD subject on TV stations – “Working as a teacher in Personal and Social Development Interview with Amanda Caruana (10 th December 2012) and “Youngsters don’t realise inhalants are dangerous” (21 st September 2012). Input in articles on the Times of Malta about the importance of PSD – “PSD needs to be taken to further levels” (10 th March 2013) and “Developing personal, social skills” (30 th March 2013) Times of Malta- 13 July 2013 - Pornification of the young generation Times of Malta- 16 June 2013 (also cited be i. News) - Sex education and pornography in PSD 10 March 2012 - For MPSDA website - Menstruation Education in Malta. Are our young maltese girls really prepared for this milestone?

Ongoing talks and training for teachers Primary Self-Examination Sexually Transmitted Infections

Next conference The introduction of PSD at postsecondary and tertiary level

Quantitative Research analysing the importance of PSD Skills in employment recruitment The aim of the research was to highlight the importance of PSD skills in the world of work, particularly when it comes to recruitment of an employee.

Data Gathering Members of the MPSDA gathered data from 154 job advertisements that were published in two issues of the weekly newspaper The Sunday Times of Malta dated the 22 nd June 2014 and the 29 th June 2014.

1. PSD Skills Requirements Out of 154 advertisements, 122 of them included PSD skills requisites (79. 2%) Figure 1: Pie chart illustrating the percentage results of advertisements requesting PSD skills against those that did not request any of such skills

2. Number of PSD Skills Required The following is a bar chart illustrating the frequency of PSD skills requisites mentioned in the examined advertisements. Figure 2: Bar Chart illustrating the number of advertisements against the number of listed soft skills

3. Soft vs Hard Skills The number of skill requirements found in all the 154 advertisements added up to 833 skills. 449 of these were soft skill requisites against 384 hard skills. Figure 3: Pie chart illustrating the percentage result of the total number of requested soft skills against that of the requested hard skills

4. Popular PSD Skills 41 different PSD skills were identified across the 154 advertisements. The 10 most popular PSD skills requested in various employment sectors are presented in the bar chart below: Figure 4: Bar chart illustrating the number of job advertisements that listed each of the ten most required PSD skills as a job requirement

Other soft skills and personal qualities that were often listed as a requisite for emplyment included : Problem – Solving (16) Willing to Learn (9) Creativity Skills (14) Positive Attitude (8) Flexibility (12) Presentation Skills (7) Integrity (10) Strategic Thinking and Planning (7) Analytic Thinking (10) Ambitious (6) Hard-working (9) Leadership Skills (6) The numbers in the brackets indicate the number of adverts that particular soft skill was listed in

European PSD Association

Couple cards Working with Relationship are Forever Foundation. Resolving differences by using cards that: 1. express feelings (Blue cards) 2. discuss the differences by presenting the good (Green cards) and bad moves (Violet cards) 3. settle the discussion by considering making up cards (Yellow cards)

Relationship Cards Working with the PSD Educational Officers and the Commissioner for Children. Relationship cards for primary and secondary school students.

Video Production of a video on PSD found online at The Zone within the Times of Malta website. http: //www. timesofmalta. com/articles/vi ew/20121210/thezone-careers/workingas-a-teacher-in-personal-and-socialdevelopment. 449020

Contact Information E mail address: Facebook page: Malta PSD Association