Psychologists from Youth Klinic Moldova (YK), which brings together 41 youth-friendly health centers across the country, are learning to apply innovative methods of working with their beneficiaries. During a supervision meeting organized today at the NEOVITA Resource Center in Chisinau, the specialists were shown how to use the OH storytelling cards, a tool that helps counseling seekers open up about something that might otherwise embarrass them, or discover an unsuspected root cause of an issue.
Natalia Solovei, a consulting psychologist at the NEOVITA Center, told IPN that during these training sessions held quarterly the specialists address the difficult cases of psychological practice, analyze them and identify the most effective solutions to apply them later in counseling. Supervision is followed by a training module that addresses innovative work methods for psychologists on a particular subject. This time, the specialists learned about the OH cards solution.
The OH cards consist of two sets containing 90 pieces each. One represents images or miniature paintings that reflect aspects of everyday life. The other set contains words that reflect the verbal part of the paintings. When all the images are placed above the words, the two sets offer nearly eight thousand possible combinations. According to Solovei, the cards represent a way for the person to share their feelings, ideas and intuitions in a context that protects their privacy.
YK Youth Friendly Health Centers usually counsel adolescents or their parents on age-specific issues. They often involve low self-esteem, tense family relations, body image issues, unrequited love, issues associated with the parents leaving abroad, and bullying.
The meetings are supported by the Healthy Generation - Youth-friendly Health Services Project, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and implemented by the NGO “Youth Health”, the National Resource Center for Youth-friendly Health Services NEOVITA, in partnership with the Ministry of Health, Labor and Social Protection.
