Deputy Education Minister: Peer violence and social media are key threats today

Epidemiological data clearly indicate growing mental health problems among schoolchildren. As Deputy Education Minister Paulina Piechna-Więckiewicz stresses, the ministry's activities must include both prevention and support for young people at various stages of education. - We are primarily trying to act with NPZ programs, which allow us, through cooperation with NGOs, institutions, to promote good practices, prevention, counteraction in schools," says the deputy minister. As he adds, this is only the first element of a broad strategy.

Peer Support: a pilot for 200 schools

The second pillar is the introduction of innovative methods to youth work. - The second component is the introduction of innovative methods for working with young people, and this is what the Peer Support program is, for example. Piloted for 200 high schools, 42 million zlotys raised from European funds," he lists. The program is based on the idea of "emotional first aid" provided by peers. Responsible for the process are the guardians of these young people. Such a solution is currently being piloted.

Emotional support from kindergarten onwards

The ministry is also preparing solutions aimed at the youngest children. - We want to work with emotional needs as early as kindergarten and in grades 1-3. We say that these problems appear in children of several years, but in order for them not to appear, we have to work actually from birth with children. But what the Ministry of Education is responsible for is stage one, which is kindergarten and then grades 1-3."

Peer violence - the most important threat

The deputy minister stresses that prevention of peer violence is one of the absolute priorities. - Unfortunately, peer violence is the number one crisis related to at least suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts or whatever the worst can happen among young people.

That's why violence prevention was included in this year's educational policy directions. It involves additional training for teachers at teacher training centers.

The MEN has also prepared nationwide campaigns: Relationship-Building Week for kindergartens and the Week Against Peer Violence. - We want these events at the end of September to be permanently placed on the calendar of Polish schools. Why in September? Because this is the moment when we start school, make new friends, and then the fate of the child is decided, and he either ends up well or starts to be excluded," explains Piechna-Więckiewicz.

Digitization and social media worsen well-being

Another area the ministry is working on is the impact of digitization and social media on the functioning of young people. - This is the issue of this great digitization of our world, AI, which is appearing everywhere, and social media, aggression, deterioration of mental health. Here, however, we see many causes in this world of social media," says the deputy minister.

As he points out, the Ministry of Education is preparing information strategies for parents. - We need to make parents aware, tell them: listen, you don't know everything about what is happening to the brain, to your child's health. Right now we are working with specialists on how to communicate with parents, what information to give. This is a very important role of the state.

At the same time, other ministries are creating regulations to force greater accountability of social media platforms.

Interdepartmental work: fighting siloism

As P.Piechna-Więckiewicz admits, the key is to move away from sectoral thinking. - We keep talking about a world where in order to solve public health problems, we need to work interdepartmentally, inter-sectorally and really get rid of this silosity. I'm very happy about that, because that's one of the words of 2025... fighting silosity.