Education in India needs to be reviewed in the light of the goal of national development. In India, the policy on education is primarily focused on academics and is yet to incorporate ways and means aimed at the holistic development of the child- the mental, emotional and physical spheres. Although the National Policy on Education has made some headways from its emphasis on the education of the girl child, the focus is still primarily on providing useful and relevant elementary education for all children in the 6 to 14 age group by 2010 through the NPE’s initiative – Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. Its goal is to bridge social, regional and gender gaps, with the active participation of the community in the management of schools, through provision of community-owned quality education. There are about 888 thousands educational institutions in the country with an enrolment of about 179 millions. Elementary Education System in India is the second largest in the World with 149.4 millions children of 6-14 years enrolled and 2.9 million teachers. This is about 82% of the children in the age group. The policy also highlights growth and priority areas in education in India that point to the challenges of the future. Increasingly, there is a felt need to address the challenging issues children face growing up in this changing environment, particularly in urban India. With a view towards this, certain action research art therapy interventions exploring adolescent issues pertaining to growing up, were carried out by a NGO, Manahkshetra Foundation in partnership with govt. institutes and schools. A collaborative venture between Manahkshetra and the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai the initiative was open to children between the ages of 11/12 and 14/15 years from various schools. The focus of the study was to understand the efficacy of creative arts therapeutic interventions using a developmental module, ‘GROWING UP’, which offered a creative platform whereby the children were able to use creative arts therapeutic processes and group dynamics to explore and express visually their understanding of the self, environmental influences, issues related to puberty, sexuality, adolescent behaviours, feelings, attitudes and experience emotional development and change during this phase of growth. The program enabled children to identify feelings and blocks to emotional growth, express feelings which maybe difficult to verbalise, improve overall communication skills, increase self-esteem and confidence, develop healthy coping skills when faced with a stressful situation and heighten creativity. The focus was in enhancing leadership qualities – decision making and problem solving, inculcate an improved body image and overall personality development through a ‘heroes module’, which explored relatedness and identification of role models through contemporary heroes with children. A comparative analysis was conducted as children were sourced from private as well as govt. schools from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. A staff-training program in the use of creative arts therapies was also conducted for teachers, counsellors and special educators from 25 schools, where in the purpose was capacity building within their existent roles to take the program forward. Similarly the module was also applied at Bal Bhavan – a govt.organization which provides after school extra curricular activities. The program was called Bal Pragati – a developmental program for emotional development of children and was a collaborative venture between Bal Bhavan and Manahkshetra. We would like to share our significant learnings at the CCEAM conference, ‘Recreating linkages between theory and praxis in Educational Leadership’, with a view towards contributing and impacting change within the National Policy on Education in India in the future and the need to incorporate counselling, special education needs and creative/expressive arts therapies, at the school level in India. Currently the scope of counseling is limited to only certain private schools and we feel there is strong need to make it available at the larger school level in India.