05 November 2015 – The Philippine Consulate General in Milan, in cooperation with Philippine Overseas Labor Office and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (POLO-OWWA) Milan, conducted a workshop on Basic Counseling and Training Course in Handling Assistance-to-Nationals (ATN) Cases for its personnel, at Hotel Moderno in Pavia, Italy on October 31. This is part of the Consulate General’s Gender and Development project, mandated by Section 4.2 of the PCW-NEDA-DBM Joint Circular 2012-01 and Section 37 of MCW-Gender Focal Point Officer in Philippine Embassies and Consulates.

Philippine Consul General Marichu Mauro, in her opening remarks, underscored the importance of knowledge in handling clients in distress and emphasized the need to upgrade the skills of the personnel in order to provide a better service to the Filipino community.

The resource speaker, ATN Officer Gail Atangan, explained Basic Counseling and Handling ATN Cases, its concepts, terminologies and approaches to clients, with the primary aim to deepen the knowledge and upgrade the skills of the Consulate General personnel.

The workshop concluded with role playing, where attendees were divided into four groups and were given different cases to act out and apply the concepts of counseling that they have learned from the seminar. END