ESCAP member profile

Russia

ASSOCIATION OF CHILD PSYCHIATRISTS AND PSYCHOLOGISTS (ACPP) or Ассоциация детских психиатров и психологов

90 members

The Association of Child Psychiatrists and Psychologists (ACPP) in Russia, formerly know as the ‘Independent Association of Child Psychiatrists and Psychologists’, was established as a professional public organization in 1992 by twelve child psychiatrists who worked in prominent clinics and research centers. The founders were driven by their dissatisfaction with the conditions of child mental health care and the performance of psychiatric science in Russia.

Departments and representatives
The ACPP runs six regional departments and a network of representatives in fifteen areas, including the former Soviet Republics Kirgizstan, Moldova and Ukraine. The Association unites a broad circle of specialists: psychiatrists, psychologists, teachers, social workers and other professions that have a certain focus on the protection of the mental health of future generations.

The ACPP is executing the following scientific and practical programmes:

1. Diagnostics of giftedness in schoolchildren.
2. Yearly prevention of the abandonment of motherhood.
3. Prevention of school maladaptation.
4. Mental disorders in children living in zones of military conflict.
5. Social-juridical protection of mentally disturbed children and their families.
6. Edition of the first Russian Reference Book of Child and Adolescence Psychology and Psychiatry.
7. Adaptation of orphanage leavers to an independent life.
8. Education for remote areas: ‘Child social psychiatry for non-psychiatrists’.
9. Psychiatric and psychological care for children suffering from oncological illnesses.
10. Prevention of abuse in Russian schools.

Scientific and practical journal
From 2001 to date, the ACPP is publishing the first and exclusive Russian interdisciplinary scientific and practical journal ‘The Issues of Mental Health of Children and Adolescents’. The Association was initiator and leading organizer of several all-Russian conferences on current problems of psychiatric, psychological, social and pedagogic nature in childhood:

1. Special children and their environment (1993).
2. Orphans in Russia: problems, hopes, future (1993).
3. School maladaptation: emotional and stress disorders in children and adolescents (1995).
4. Intellectual and creative giftedness (1995).
5. Social maladaptation: behavioural problems in children and adolescents (1996).
6. Children in Russia: abuse and protection (1997).
7. Social and mental health of children and families: protection, aid, returning to normal life (1998).
8. Orphans in Russia: the child’s right to a family (2001).

Influential conferences
The ACPP was initiator and leading organizer of five international congresses titled: ‘Young Generation of XXI Circle: Actual Problems of Social and Mental Health’ (Moscow 2001; Minsk 2003; Kazan 2006; Kirov 2009; Moscow, 2013).
The ACPP conferences and congresses have produced several documents that had an appeal and influence on governmental and legislative bodies concerning the reform of the care system for maladaptive children. The content of these papers were regularly edited as books and distributed among specialists (average circulation: 1000 copies). All conferences were organized without registration fee or admission.
The ACPP – together with Institute of Harmonic Development and Adaptation – carries out educational seminars and regular professional retraining in several aspects of child, adolescent and family psychology, psychotherapy, and psychiatry. The ACPP is taking part in legislative work for the parliament (State Duma).

Declaration of the Rights of the Child
With the programme “Right of the child”, the ACPP took the initiative for establishing an Ombudsman service or children in Russia, and developed a regional model for “Laws to protect children’s rights’.
According to an ACPP initiative, a State Duma committee started a major project on the development of child psychiatric services. Together with several NGO’s, the ACPP prepared an alternative report on the implementation of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (UN, 1959) in Russia and then presented this report in the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (Geneva, 1999). The ACPP has been working together with international organizations and professional associations in many countries, such as Great Britain, France and Lithuania. The ACPP members presented their work at numerous congresses and conferences in Sweden, Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Romania and elsewhere. The ACPP has never received any governmental financial support. All ACCP programmes are realized on the members’ own initiatives, or by means of grants.