ACADEMICIAN SERGIY MAKSYMENKO: “STRONG SPIRIT – THIS IS ALSO A WEAPON”
The meeting with academician of the National Academy of Educational Sciences of Ukraine, Director of Kostyuk Institute of Psychology, Dean of Medical Psychology Faculty of Bogomolets NMU, Doctor of Psychology, Professor Sergiy Maksymenko took place on July 18, 2014.
Academician Sergiy Maksymenko, who currently heads the permanent “MEDICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSISTANCE CRISIS CENTER”, stressed that hotline acts, where volunteers are on duty all around the clock, and in Kiev is providing free resident psychological counseling and psychological assistance to the citizens at the Institute of General and medical psychology and pedagogy of Bogomolets National Medical University.
Help in Crisis Center is available in three areas: 1) emergency counseling and information help to the people who are in crisis or problem situation; 2) consultative and psychological, psychotherapeutic, psycho correctional help to children, parents and adults (individual and group work); 3) specialization of the volunteers, psychologists and social workers to work with acute trauma and posttraumatic states.
Also it was organized scientific and practical cooperation with the State Border Service of Ukraine and Research Centre of the humanitarian problems of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Currently, two mobile volunteer groups working on the deployment of Armed Forces bases in Chernihiv and Dnipropetrovs’k regions that conduct range of psychological and social measures aimed at prevention and rehabilitation work with military personnel. This includes informing servicemen and officers regarding acute trauma and its effects for prevention; developing skills of first psychological assistance to each other; training military psychologists to work in military operations (work with mass acute trauma).
Volunteers-psychologists provide psychological follow-up for teams that are preparing to travel to combat zones and provide professional psychological aids for wounded soldiers who participated in operative and tactical activities.
