The Fourth International School of World Educational Practices "New Way"
Classes at the Fourth International School of World Educational Practices "New Way", organized by the Education and Research Institute of Communications of WUNU in cooperation with the Netherlands Business Academy, have reached the midpoint.
Among the participants of this year's school, in addition to students of the educational programme "Psychology of Negotiation and Mediation", are academics from West Ukrainian National University, Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Odesa State University of Internal Affairs, Kyiv Professional College of Tourism and Hospitality, KROK Business School of the KROK University of Economics and Law, employees of the Main Departments of the National Police in Ternopil and Khmelnytskyi region, Police Station No. 3 of the Ternopil Regional Department of the National Police in Ternopil Oblast (Terebovlia), Police Station No. 3 of the Chortkiv District Police Department (Husiatyn), Police Station No. 1 of the Ternopil Regional Police Department (Ternopil), the Security Police Department in Ternopil Oblast, representatives of the Odesa Oblast Bar Council, a judge of the Storozhynets District Court, a chief specialist of the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine, a representative of the Justa Bar Association, practicing psychologists, and lawyers.
Over the past week, participants and speakers have been discussing the art of crisis negotiation and the urgent need to learn how to communicate in acute situations, to work with aggression, fears, pressure, or manipulation here and now in an extremely difficult time for Ukraine.
As a result, everyone received a lot of useful professional information from expert speakers.
In particular, a lecture on crisis states and the principles of help and self-help was given by a Ukrainian psychotherapist in the field of positive psychotherapy, supervisor Tetiana Harhat. The speaker shared her experience of providing psychological support and counseling vulnerable populations affected by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine who found themselves in difficult life circumstances, as well as developing programs and initiatives aimed at improving their mental health at the charitable organization Rokada. The participants discussed the issues of therapy for aggression, anxiety, panic attacks, fears, psychosomatic disorders, consequences of mental trauma, etc.
The speech of the second speaker, who serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and works on the front line with the military, was extremely touching. Yurii Stryzhevskyi, a practicing psychologist, hypnotherapist, military psychologist, crisis psychologist, and specialist in bio-suggestive therapy (Ukraine), spoke about psychotherapy in war. Mr. Yurii has worked with military personnel and their families since 2014. His areas of expertise include crisis psychology, stress, aggression, loss, and addiction.
Robert Kotiecki, an independent analyst, trainer and advisor on security and crisis communications (Poland), shared his experience as a police negotiator on psychological mechanisms of negotiation and communication in crisis negotiations. Mr. Kotiecki has been trained in police negotiations, psychology and hostage negotiation, kidnapping and counterterrorism operations in numerous special units, including: FBI (USA), BKA/SEK (Germany), URNA (Czech Republic), ARRAS (Lithuania), NCA (England), GIGN (France), GIS (Italy), TEK (Hungary). He has practical knowledge of surveillance techniques, body language, microexpressions, manipulation and identification of danger signals. At one time, he served as the Head of the Negotiation Department of the Anti-Terrorist Bureau of the National Police Headquarters in Poland and acted as the national coordinator of police negotiations.
Also in the first week, participants had the opportunity to talk with Melissa Fortunato, a retired FBI Special Agent (USA) who was a certified FBI crisis negotiator and undercover agent for 23 years and headed the Cleveland FBI Crisis Negotiation Team. Melissa is now a senior associate and trainer at Negotiations Collective. As an undercover FBI agent, Melissa operated both domestically and abroad. Her undercover portfolio included transnational organized crime, public corruption, drug trafficking, and counterintelligence. One of the cases in which she was directly involved as an undercover agent was brought to the attention of the President of the United States and received the FBI Director's Award.
During the training, the participants were introduced to the Behavioral change stairway model, which includes active listening techniques, empathy, rapport building, mechanisms of influence, and behavior change. The trainer shared the key points of successful crisis negotiation, such as teamwork, choosing the right strategy and evaluating it, and controlling emotions.
