Moldova

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In 1995, four years after the declaration of independence of Moldova, the republic's healthcare was on the brink of a crisis. During the years of independence, the Republic of Moldova faced serious eco economic hardships that led to lower incomes and worsening financing of health care and social programs. 

Psychological assistance should be developed as a complex system of professional activities.

Since 2020 the Education Strategy Project proposes as an objective for the development of counselling and guidance. It aims to provide a basic support for higher education institutions for the creation and operation of university centres for career guidance and counselling whose mission is to support citizens in the career design process and pursuing career education. The Project also contains the Framework Regulation for the operation of the guidance centre and career counselling (career guidance methodology, its purposes, services provided, etc.), as well as and a series of annexes with examples of sheets and documents developed within the centres, which can serve as a support when creating and operating similar centres in universities in the Republic of Moldova (cf. Cerniţanu 2017).

The current system of social assistance services is based on intervention and not really on prevention. Although a number of reforms have been made, they do not cover all disadvantaged people yet. There are not enough resources to build a strong Counselling Service, because there are problems in the (mental) health care that are more serious (cf. Chistruga-Sinchevici 2013).

In most cases Counselling services are provided by non-governmental organizations. Medical services in the Republic of Moldova are offered based on the Compulsory Health Insurance System.

There is a Framework for counselling and guidance which was developed in the Education Strategy Project 2020, but Counselling is not regulated by the government (cf. Chistruga-Sinchevici 2013).

The Framework mentions that, under the conditions of university autonomy, Higher education institutions are entitled to develop their own regulations on the creation and operation of guidance and counselling centres in career, approved by the senate, provided that they will not contain provisions that are in contradiction with this Regulation (cf. Cerniţanu 2017).

Counselling and Guidance in educational settings: The Republic of Moldova is to provide equal rights to all children, including children with developmental problems. In this regard, school and social integration of children with developmental problems revealed the need to reorganize the psychological service in the field of education (cf. Kucher/ Furdui n.y.). Choosing the right career brings benefits for the individuals and for the society. Counselling and guidance in educational settings help the students to identify educational opportunities and professional developments (cf. Cerniţanu 2017).

Challenges:

Unfortunately school psychologists are often unqualified and without sufficient theoretical and methodological knowledge in solving psychological issues, which they encounter in working with students, their parents and teachers. This situation can be explained by various reasons, both socio-economic and scientific.

Ideally there should be a conceptual model of psychological assistance, which should be unified and become the basis for all psychological services. In this case, specialists in the field of psychology will be able to cooperate to exchange experiences. In this context, it becomes relevant to improve curricula for training psychologists. Psychologists share the opinion that traditional trainings in academic programs are not necessary and even not applicable in psychological practice.

Another challenge in Moldova is the organization of the psychological profession. There are no clear structures or frameworks on a Psychologists profession. Also the work between the Mental Health Ministry, the Ministry of Education and Psychologists is poorly organized.

The biggest issue in Moldova is that almost a quarter of the citizens do not have knowledge about psychological services.

In conclusion, it must be emphasized that in accordance with the needs of the society it is important to activate the process of information on psychology and provide the necessary resources to promote the development of psychological care (cf. Kucher/ Furdui n.y.).

Trends:

There is no Trend when it comes to counselling in the Republic of Moldova. The biggest and only “trend” is to build more counselling services and organize the social structures.

For a more in-depth examination of the counselling profession in Moldova, interested readers are advised to read the following articles as well as books:

• Cerniţanu, M. (2017): Serviciul de consiliere psihologică și ghidare în carieră din cadrul instituțiilor de învățământ superior din Moldova. Sănătate Publică, Economie şi Management în Medicină, 74(4), 26-30.
• Chistruga-Sinchevici, I. (2013): Politicile familiale din Republica Moldova în context european. In Creşterea economică în condiţiile globalizării (pp. 214-221).
• Kucher, A./ Furdui, E. (n.y.): Some Views on the Necessity of Psychological Care for Children with development problems in the republic of Moldova. 
• McLehose, L., & McKee, M. (2002): Health systems: time of change: Republic of Moldova.