Remote psychological support for schoolchildren will appear in Russia

Professional psychologists will be able to consult children throughout Russia remotely using the state portal, Minister of Education Sergei Kravtsov said. The system is being created on the basis of the Moscow Psychological and Pedagogical University and should be operational by the end of this year. Kommersant learned from the developers what the portal would look like and asked the experts to evaluate how effective the existing system of school psychological assistance is.

The head of the Ministry of Education, Sergei Kravtsov, announced a portal for psychological assistance to schoolchildren at the V All-Russian Digoria Forum. “For the first time I will say this, we will have the opportunity to help professional psychologists remotely. Each student will be able to receive professional advice behind closed doors,” the minister said. Mr. Kravtsov recalled that children and adolescents may experience difficulties in communicating with parents and peers, so they “need an external person with whom they can share this or that problem.” “If the problem is not shared, it then accumulates and can manifest itself destructively,” the head of the Ministry of Education noted.

The press service of the department assured Kommersant that the portal would only be an addition to the work on “preserving and developing the traditional psychological service in kindergartens, schools, colleges.” The ministry does not yet have answers to questions about the financing of the project and its technical equipment. However, the press service said that “both schoolchildren and their parents will be able to use the portal,” and it will be supported by “broad and narrow specialists, including neuropsychologists, psychophysiologists, clinical psychologists, crisis psychologists.”

The system is being developed by the Federal Coordinating Center for the Provision of Psychological Services in the Education System of the Russian Federation (it was established on the basis of the Moscow Psychological and Pedagogical University in 2022 at the initiative of the Minister of Education). The head of the center, Olga Ulyanina, explained to Kommersant that the digital psychological assistance platform is being created in pursuance of the instructions of Russian President Vladimir Putin on “increasing the availability and quality of psychological assistance to participants in educational relations” (given on September 30, 2021). Ms. Ulyanina said that it would be “not just a portal, but a full-fledged system” covering all subjects of Russia.

According to her, the project consists of three parts. The first will enable children and parents to seek psychological help through various communication channels (chat, video conference, phone call). “This can be done anonymously,” Olga Ulyanina emphasized. The second part of the project is informational and educational materials on psychological topics for users of all ages. The third part is the personal account of a school psychologist teacher, where he can “maintain a digital profile” of students, enter data from consultations and testing. Ms. Ulyanina is sure that the project will be especially useful in regions where it is more difficult to get access to professional psychological assistance than in large cities: “The digital platform will be an excellent alternative for children from small towns to receive the necessary support.”

Doctor of Psychology, Honored Professor of Moscow State University Andrei Podolsky says that now school psychologists are unpopular with children and adolescents – and the reason is the low qualification of such specialists. “This sad story goes back to the Soviet Union, where it was decided to create psychological assistance services in educational institutions,” says the expert. but with people in uniform. Mr. Podolsky is sure that even today the level of training of educational psychologists has remained low, so children simply feel uncomfortable to contact them. “The transition of such work to online will not solve the problem, it is necessary to purposefully improve the qualifications of specialists and professional standards,” the expert says. In his opinion, “teenagers in general rather need a friend who will listen and gently support.” Mr. Podolsky refers to the initiative “with tension”, noting that “for successful implementation, too many aspects need to be taken into account.”

“School psychologists will be effective not online or offline, but with well-established integrated work with parents and class teachers and other teachers,” says Roman Demyanchuk, Associate Professor at the Department of Educational Psychology and Pedagogy at St Petersburg University. He points out that in non-specialized schools “there are 0.75 psychologists for every 7,000 children,” so specialists simply do not have time to pay enough attention to schoolchildren. “In Moscow and St. Petersburg, this is not felt that way, and in the regions, psychologists have such a colossal burden that it is almost impossible to hope for any positive results,” says Mr. Demyanchuk. However, he approves of the idea of ​​expanding the system of school psychological assistance online – “if everything is developed correctly.” The expert is sure that modern children quite often fence themselves off from their parents and do not share their experiences with them, preferring to find answers to their questions on the Internet. “If high-quality materials appear on this portal, then the child may eventually come to the idea of ​​turning to a specialist there for help,” says Roman Demyanchuk.

Tamara Grigoryants, a medical psychologist at the Children’s Psychoneurological Hospital in the capital, notes that school psychologists should perform a preventive function: “They examine children, see alarming signals and inform parents and teachers about this so that measures can be taken. They themselves will not be able to fully lead the child.” Ms. Grigoryants told Kommersant that children often come to her appointment, who were brought precisely after such a recommendation from a psychologist. “Confidentiality must always be observed,” the specialist notes. “A child may not want parents to know about a particular problem. He needs to clarify this. If school psychologists and specialists of the emerging online portal can respect these boundaries, the help will be effective.”

Polina Yachmennikova