Siliguri, Feb. 29: For all teenagers out there, the next time you find it hard to handle the “darkest secret” of your life and contemplate confiding in the agony aunt column of sundry magazines, help could be just a step away.

Adolescents can now approach teachers of their respective schools or the facilitators at the regional nodal centres for counselling and help. The counselling will be done discreetly and the identities of the teenagers will not be disclosed even to the parents.

The initiative to address the physiological and psychological problems of the teenagers was first taken in 2000 by the World Health Organisation in collaboration with the department of health and family welfare, Government of India, and the Indian Medical Association.

The first workshop in north Bengal for training schoolteachers for Reproductive Child Health (RCH) — the project that was launched statewide in 2000 — was held here last week.

It was organised by the community medicine department of North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMCH). Around 80 schoolteachers from 49 institutions in Siliguri and its outskirts participated in the seminar.

“We have selected two teachers for the training programme. The criteria for the choice were that at least one of them had to be a woman and a biology teacher. There was an interactive session during which our experts answered queries from participants,” said Manasi Chakraborty, the head of the department of community medicine of NBMCH.

“Calcutta Medical College(CMC), NBMCH, Burdwan Medical College, Malda and Midnapore hospitals, have been selected as nodal centres in the state among which CMC will function as the apex referral centre,” visiting consultant of Calcutta RCH Mira Saha said.

Adolescents, who are not school students, can walk into the hospital where counselling would be free of cost.