On October 28, Vitebsk /Diana Kurilo - BELTA/. An experimental course on developing resilience to socio-adverse factors for schoolchildren, "We Ourselves," will be launched in the Vitebsk region from the second academic quarter, the chief freelance medical psychologist of the region, Nikolai Yakushkin, told a BELTA correspondent. The course includes 10 training sessions, the essence of which is to teach adolescents aged 10-14 to resist destructive influences of the social environment and foster their stress resistance. According to Nikolai Yakushkin, during the training sessions, psychologists will help adolescents understand themselves, establish contact with peers and adults, and learn how to behave in a crisis situation and say no to bad habits. Along with school psychologists, medical professionals, police officers, and priests will conduct the sessions. The methodology was developed by a team of authors – specialists from the Vitebsk Regional Psychoneurological Dispensary, scientists from the Vitebsk State Medical University, and educators. A similar system for working with adolescents is used in Europe and the USA. Its main difference from traditional prohibitive methods, Nikolai Yakushkin believes, is teaching adolescents to identify a problem area and resist it, hence the shortened name of the course, "We Ourselves." The experiment will take place during the second and third academic quarters in four regular schools in Vitebsk and Sennensky District, as well as in the psychological and pedagogical support center of Pervomaisky District. After the course, adolescents participating in the experiment, their teachers, and parents will be surveyed to refine the methodology based on their feedback and use it in the work of school psychologists in the future. -0-

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