Department of Developmental Psychology and Counseling
The Department was created in September, 1998, when the training for psychology experts began at the University and it was named the Department of Practical Psychology. In June 2019 it was renamed to the Department of Developmental Psychology and Counseling.
Highly qualified teaching and professorial staff of the Department, with more than 20 years of experience in training of psychologists, provides a high level of theoretical, applied and practical training for experts of the specialty “Psychology” for the following levels of higher education: Bachelor’s (qualification “Practical Psychologist”, “Staff Organizer”); Master’s (qualification “Psychologist”, “Teacher of Psychological Studies”); Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree (specialty “Psychology”). Graduate students have opportunity to get a higher education degree at a Polish University distantly. The Department provides studying of more than 60 theoretical, applied and practical psychological disciplines for the psychologists training.
15 lecturers work at the Department: 2 Doctors of Psychology, Professors; 8 PhDs in Psychological Sciences, Associate Professors; 4 PhDs in Psychological Sciences, Lecturers; 1 Assistant. Doctor of Psychological Sciences, Professor Halyna Kindrativna Radchuk is the Head of the Department.
During the time of the Department functioning a thorough work concerning the formation of an educational and methodological support base of the disciplines was done. For instance, a bank of formsheet and computer psychodiagnostics was created and it is constantly updated, educational and methodical manuals, including electronic manuals for all subjects of the fundamental and the expert training, a video library of diagnostic, corrective, training classes etc were elaborated. More than 30 educational and methodical manuals and monographs have been published. The Department has a specialized training office and now it works on creating of a modern office of psychological assistance. The library of the Department (about 5000 works) provides information and methodological bases for the training of psychology experts.
The Department teachers have developed a holistic concept of practical training for future psychology experts, which implies six types of practices during the Bachelor’s studies. In order to provide practical training for future experts, the Department cooperates with more than 100 institutions, where students pass the practice.
Since the time of its establishment the Department has become a center of psychological education in Ternopil and Ternopil region. In particular, for many years, teachers have been conducting classes and consulting students of the Psychology section of the Small Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Scientific researches performed by the students under the teachers’ guidance, have won both regional and all-Ukrainian stages of the scientific works competition for many times. The scientific and methodological seminars for local and regional psychologists are regularly held.
A significant contribution to the Department development was made by the activity of the Resource Center for social workers. This project was established as a grant due to the enthusiasm of the Department lecturers and existed for fourteen years (1999 - 2013). Thanks to the Resource Center functioning and the support of foreign partners the lecturers had the opportunity to gain an interesting experience in conducting trainings concerning the prevention of negative phenomena in the youth environment and gain new experience of implementing interactive technologies within the so-called “non-formal adult education”, which has become a serious basis for the activation of such developments and for higher professional education.
Taking into account the recent realities and considering all the acquired professional experience, in 2018 the Department lecturers initiated the creation of the Center for Educational and Psychological Interactive Technologies as an Educational-Advisory Structural Division of the University, which is aimed to provide a peculiar psychological support for the process of reforming of the modern education. In particular, the Center organizes and conducts social-psychological and educational trainings for teachers on such relevant topics as “Psychological Prevention of Bullying in the Educational Environment”, “Innovative Approaches to Sexual Education”, “Development of Emotional Intelligence of Teachers”, “Prevention of Emotional Burnout” etc.
The Department lecturers use innovative computer technologies in education as well as implement modern educational technologies, different interactive methods, training forms of work (educational, communicative, art-therapeutic) etc. In the process of scientific-pedagogical search and acquisition of professional experience, the lecturers of the Department have developed and implemented in practice innovative humanitarian technology - educational dialogue, which is considered as a form of active learning, the purpose of which is the mastering of professional knowledge at the value-semantic level.
Thus, lecturers focus their work on professionalism and personality of future experts. In particular, in order to solve problems of psychological adaptation to studying, the development of communicative skills training classes for the first year students are involved, which are conducted by the undergraduates as a part of individual research tasks under the teachers’ guidance.
The Department lecturers have held six scientific and practical conferences, three of which were international. The best psychology students are constantly participating in All-Ukrainian Psychology Olympiads, and ten of them have won these Olympiads.
The lecturers constantly improve their professional competence through various courses and psychotherapy programs. Many lecturers of the Department have undergone international training in higher education institutions of the Czech Republic and Poland.
Today, the staff of the Department of Developmental Psychology and Counseling is a powerful team of professionals who are ready for creative work and development.
