The World Health Organisation estimates that at least 14 million Ukrainians are in need of psychosocial support. UNICEF and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine are working together to provide psychosocial support to students in vocational institutions.
Due to the full-scale war in Ukraine, millions of people in the country are in need of psychosocial assistance and support. These are children, teenagers and adults. The problem of mental health protection has become more acute since the outbreak of a full-scale war, as Ukrainians are now more vulnerable to stress, depression, anxiety, PTSD and other mental disorders. Therefore, mastering psychosocial support skills is extremely important, especially for adolescents.
Psychosocial support for vocational school students
To address the issue of mental health protection, the Association for Innovative and Digital Education, together with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, launched a large-scale project to provide psychosocial support to students of vocational education institutions.
The project covers seven regions:
- Odesa.
- Sumy.
- Lviv.
- Mykolaiv.
- Poltava.
- Zakarpattia.
- Volyn.
The comprehensive programme "Psychosocial Support and Psychological Assistance at All Levels of Education", implemented by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, provides a systematic approach to supporting all participants in the educational process. This programme was developed as part of the National Mental Health Programme "How are you?", initiated by the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska.
Parents and guardians of students will also be involved in the training. This training will provide them with the opportunity to learn positive parenting skills. In addition, training will be organised to improve the skills of psychosocial assistance and mental health support for 700 practical psychologists working in the communities of the above-mentioned regions.
The pilot phase of the project has now been completed, which included training practical psychologists and social educators, obtaining the Ministry of Education and Science's stamp of approval for the programme, and training of a control group of students. The next stage will involve systematic work with adolescents, parents and teachers. Trainings will be held live, directly in the educational institutions where children study, and trainings and supervision for teachers will be held online.
Psychosocial support will be provided to more than 30,000 students in vocational education institutions.
These activities are part of the project ‘Establishment of Digital Learning Centres (DLCs) and Psychosocial Support Services for Children and Youth’, implemented by the Association for Innovative and Digital Education in cooperation with UNICEF and the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine with financial support from the USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE).
Mental health has a direct impact on a person's performance, ability to learn and work. That is why such programmes and activities are important and necessary in today's context.
