On 13 January 2026, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences and Associate Professor T. M. Shvets took an active part in the webinar “Prevention of Risky Behaviour Among Youth”. The webinar is part of the project “National Self‑Education Platform”, created by the Coordination Centre for Mental Health under the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine and the NGO “Barrier‑Free”, within the All‑Ukrainian Mental Health Programme How Are You?—an initiative of First Lady Olena Zelenska, supported by the “Partnership for a Strong Ukraine” Programme funded by the Governments of the United Kingdom, Estonia, Canada, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, and Sweden.
The project is implemented within the All‑Ukrainian Mental Health Programme How Are You?—an initiative of First Lady Olena Zelenska.
The webinar was delivered by Nataliia Masiak, a child psychiatrist and psychotherapist, Head of the Mental Rehabilitation Department at the Charity Foundation “Superhumans”, and lecturer in psychiatry at Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University and the Kyiv School of Economics.
Risky behaviour among young people, including self‑harm and suicidal manifestations, requires careful and professional attention from everyone working with children and adolescents.
The purpose of the webinar was to help participants view adolescents’ risky behaviour as a process with its own causes and internal logic. The webinar addressed highly relevant and important issues: how to distinguish normal emotional difficulties from signs of a real crisis, how to ask about sensitive topics in a correct and delicate manner, and how to act in ways that make support helpful rather than harmful.
The webinar proved valuable and brought together more than 1,500 participants, including psychologists, psychotherapists, social workers, medical professionals, parents, educators, volunteers, and all those who work or interact with young people and strive to better understand how to support adolescents in difficult life situations.
Among the questions raised by participants, the lecturer gladly responded to the question posed by T. M. Shvets regarding the effectiveness of a multidisciplinary team of specialists (psychologists, social educators, social workers, medical professionals, police officers, and other experts) in this field. She emphasized that only cooperation among various specialists can be productive and effective in preventing risky behaviour among children and adolescents.
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