The Role of the Vocational Counselling Centre/Department/ Office in Laying the Foundations for Working with Children and Youth with Disabilities in Zagreb after World War II: a Historical and Psychological Perspective

The Vocational Counselling Centre/Department/Office started operating in 1932 as a psychological-medical reaction to the economic needs of the time: the lack of qualified labour in interwar Croatia and an institution for youth educational and vocational guidance. It was the first institution in Croatia (and beyond) that based professional advice on health and psychological assessments and performed its mission with unprecedented dedication. From the very beginning of its work, the Centre/Office conducted assessments and educational/ vocational guidance of children and youth with disabilities (CYD). However, the work with this population intensified from the middle of 1945 and lasted until the Centre/Office stopped operating in 1948. In the Centre/Office’s dealings with CYD, the social sensitivity for this population manifested itself in systematic assessments and related counselling and the development of population-adapted psychodiagnostic instruments in cooperation with the relevant health and educational institutions. From the psychological, professional, and academic viewpoint, the Centre/Office followed the world standards in the discipline (counselling based on broad cognitive and specific psychomotor abilities). The Centre/Office’s psychologists translated and adapted the contemporaneous psychodiagnostic instruments and created their own, including those for CYD. The HR-DAZG-239 fonds of the State Archives in Zagreb was used to present the psychological part of the Centre/Office’s work with CYD (containing findings regarding approximately 200 CYD). With its expertise, strong academic foundations, and organisational capacities, the work of the Centre/Office represented the beginning of professional care for children and youth with disabilities in Croatia from the perspective of social sciences.