21.10.2016.
Fourth professional gathering of military psychologists
In the Central Military Club, the fourth Professional gathering of psychologists of the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces was held, attended by Acting Assistant Minister for Human Resources Milos Jankovic.- Next year it will be seven decades since psychologists in the defence system are responsible for a comprehensive psychological prevention and selection of personnel. In the last three decades, however, they have represented an important support and indispensable team members for any commander, especially when assessments for engagement of personnel on different tasks was needed, as well as their psychological preparation and prevention of unruly behaviour in military environment, Jankovic said, noting that the topics of today's meeting, such as overcoming stress, looking into the level of risk and models of psychological resilience, represent an area of psychological work for which there is a justified interest in the defence system.
Jankovic especially underlined the importance of the research project "Adaptation in the context of work and operational stress in the military and security sector – psychosocial risks and resources" of the Strategic Research Institute of the Ministry of Defence. According to him, the research is very important for many reasons, especially the practical ones. The results obtained will be applied to strengthening the capacities for performing the tasks and missions of the Armed Forces of improving the working conditions in the units, the Assistant Minister for Human Resources concluded.
Many activities of psychologists in the Ministry of Defence and the Serbian Armed Forces over the last three years were presented by Nada Markovic, Head of the Division for the development of psychological activities in the Ministry of Defence, who talked more about the status and career development of psychologists, improvement of psychological evaluation in the military, enabled the development of new psychological tests and training of psychologists, improvement of psychological prevention at the Ministry of Defence and the Armed Forces, crisis interventions, implemented scientific research projects and cooperation with the Department of Psychology of the Faculty of Psychology, University of Novi Sad, on cooperation with foreign armies, especially Denmark, Germany, Italy, Slovenia and the United Kingdom.Major Vuk Vujovic spoke about the activities of psychologists in the Serbian Armed Forces adding that there is insufficient number of military psychologists, more than half of them being in the sixth decade of life, and that field conditions and numerous tasks reflect on the results that always can and should be better.
Professor Vesna Gavrilov Jankovic, PhD, and Assistant Professor Veljko Jovanovic from the Faculty of Philosophy in Novi Sad spoke about models and mechanisms of psychological resilience to stress and the protective factors, and after discussion, assembly of the military psychologist section was held.
