From Risk Diagnosis to Evidence-Based Prevention: Co-Authorial Reading Discusses Work with Destructive Behaviour in Adolescents
On September 17, as part of the reader's club "Co-Authorial Reading" of the MSUPE cycle "Science in Publications," a webinar was held on "Diagnosis of Risks of Socially Dangerous and Self-Destructive Behaviour in General Education Organizations." The meeting was supported by the Boiling Point.
The speakers were Oksana Dmitrievna Gurina, Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Lecturer at the Department of Legal Psychology and Law, Faculty of Legal Psychology, MSUPE; Ekaterina Anatolyevna Kupriyanova, Senior Lecturer at the same department; and Andrey Sergeevich Radchikov, Research Assistant at the Research and Practice Center for Comprehensive Support of Psychological Research PsyDATA, MSUPE.
Participants were presented with the results of a large-scale two-year study dedicated to diagnosing risks and evaluating the effectiveness of technologies for preventing antisocial behaviour in minors. The study was conducted in 2024–2025 on the basis of 15 special closed-type educational institutions (SUVU) by specialists from the Department of Legal Psychology and Law at MSUPE. During the study, specialists examined the possibilities of the comprehensive prevention and correction program "Childhood Ecosystem," which included the experimental introduction into psychological-pedagogical work with SUVU students of skill-based technologies, restorative approach practices, solution-focused brief therapy (SFBT) techniques, competent mentoring in individual preventive work with adolescents after the psychological-medical-pedagogical commission, as well as additional professional education for specialists of the institutions. Oksana Dmitrievna emphasized that the technologies were implemented by specialists of the institutions.
To assess changes, a comprehensive diagnostic model was formed based on the concept of the adolescent's life position. It included six components: cognitive; axiological; existential; emotional; behavioural; and acmeological, related to self-regulation and development. The package of diagnostic methods made it possible to assess subjective experience of rejection, unmet needs, life-meaning orientations, self-attitude, ways of coping with stress, resilience, propensity for extremist attitudes, and features of behavioural self-regulation.
The study included four diagnostic waves. The first was conducted before the preventive technologies were applied; subsequent ones allowed tracking the dynamics. At each stage, using cluster analysis, three stable groups of students were identified:
- Students with a prosocial life position. Adolescents in this group were characterized by higher resilience, positive self-attitude, greater awareness of the consequences of their behaviour, and readiness to adhere to socially acceptable norms.
- Students with a situational life position. This group included students with unstable attitudes, whose behaviour largely depended on circumstances and environment. The speakers called such adolescents a particularly important target group for preventive work: timely support can help them choose a prosocial strategy.
- Students with an antisocial life position, characterized by low resilience, social pessimism, disregard for rules and laws, and a propensity for destructive coping strategies.
The positive effect of applying preventive technologies manifested within a few months: in the institutions, the proportion of adolescents with a prosocial life position increased, and the proportion of students with antisocial attitudes decreased. The most noticeable dynamics were recorded after training specialists of the institutions. At the same time, different psychological characteristics changed at different rates. The experience of rejection and dissatisfaction of needs for acceptance and control can be corrected relatively quickly with consistent supportive work. Changing life-meaning orientations, stress coping strategies, and stable destructive attitudes requires significantly more time.
The speakers presented collections that set out the technologies of the "Childhood Ecosystem" program:
- Comprehensive Diagnosis of Destructive, Autoaggressive, Extremist, and Antisocial Behaviour in Minors
- Methodological Recommendations "Modern Technologies and Models for Preventing Deviant Behaviour with Proven Effectiveness"
About 200 specialists from 35 regions of Russia, as well as from Minsk, Bishkek, and Dubossary, registered for the meeting. Many questions were asked to the speakers. In particular, participants discussed the application of the program in schools, features of group and individual work, motivation of adolescents to undergo diagnostics, and opportunities for specialist training in the special professional development program "Modern Technologies and Models for Preventing Deviant Behaviour with Proven Effectiveness".
The video recording of the meeting has been published on VKontakte, Dzen, and Rutube.
Calendar of webinars and meetings of the "Science in Publications" project for 2026