EFFICIENCY OF THE PROGRAM “PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT FOR EDUCATORS”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/psy-2024-4-8Keywords:
мental health, psychosocial support, education, children and adolescents, teachers.Abstract
Abstract. The research was a joint work of NGO “Smart Osvita”, Zhytomyr State University, and the international organization “Americares” (with scientific supervision of the associate professor of the University of Illinois, Dr. Tara Powell). The programme “Psychosocial Support for Educators” was developed as a response to the challenges of war. It aims to develop teachers’ awareness of mental health issues and readiness to provide psychosocial support for students and their parents. The tasks of the current study were to check the effectiveness of the Psychosocial Support programme for educators and to track feasibility of the programme during the war in Ukraine. The programme is based on Mental Health Universal Training for first-line specialists (the Ukrainian-Swiss project “Mental Health for Ukraine”), which made it possible to consider both global trends in the implementation of the first intervention in mental health and the Ukrainian context. The study involved teachers of various branches of education in all regions of Ukraine. Programme’s effectiveness was checked through a non-randomized controlled study that was organised in three stages: before, after, and one month after training under the Programme was completed. The results confirmed statistically significant changes in the indicators of mental health awareness and the main steps of implementing psychosocial support in the experimental group, while the changes detected in teachers from the control group were insignificant and can be considered accidental. The research contains a description of individual trends in the dynamics of awareness and readiness of teachers depending on the branch of education in which they work, the experience of pedagogical activities, and the level of their education. It was revealed that the highest indicators of the dynamics of awareness were demonstrated by educators working in primary and secondary education levels. Instead, no significant differences were found between teachers living in different regions, in the city, and the countryside.
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