Pathways for teachers’ professional development and preadaptation of parents in dire straits

The article deals with the issue of teachers’ professional development and professional preadaptation and retraining of parents who found themselves in difficult life circumstances due to their child’s serious medical condition and consequently have to change jobs. The article presents MCU’s innovative experience in implementing professional development programmes for teachers and parents in the medical setting. Modular professional retraining programmes allow students to choose the units that fit their educational needs and help them follow their own educational tracks. The article describes the process of creating academic programmes for students’ individual professional development with the help of distance-learning management platforms Moodle and Microsoft Teams. This enables students to work and study at their own pace. We have arrived at the conclusion that at times it is worth using the flipped classroom model and strategy, when students study the course content independently and later take part in discussions and question sessions, exchange their experiences and work on different case studies. Since last year there have been changes in the content, technologies and methods of working with this particular group of students. For instance, there is now an opportunity to add and use resources of non-formal education sphere. After parents successfully complete the course of study, they qualify as tutors who can assist students getting long-term treatment. This can help parents solve two problems. First, it will give them an opportunity to find a new job in the field they qualified in. Then, they will be able to provide professional psychological assistance and academic support to their children in difficult life circumstances.