She had no experience, but she sensed an opportunity. So she quit her career and started a centre with child psychologists

Markéta Trojková founded Elpira only last year and is already expanding to a second address this year. She provides psychological counselling for families with children.

Some speak of an epidemic of mental disorders among today's children, while others blame their difficulties on the phenomenon known as snowflakes. Be that as it may, the upcoming generation is nowhere near as well-off as many think. Moreover, there are too few psychologists in schools, and therapeutic care is not easily accessible. A young entrepreneur, Markéta Trojková, also sensed an opportunity in this, wanting to stand on her own feet after years of working for others – and so she founded the Elpira counselling centre in Prague. “I am helping and at the same time launching my business. It seems like an ideal combination to me,” she says.

When the National Institute of Mental Health conducted a major study two years ago into how Czech children feel, the results took many by surprise: a third of adolescents admitted to some form of mental difficulty and anxiety. Teachers and pedagogical staff share similar experiences on social media and in professional forums on Facebook – that they encounter self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and violent behaviour among students much more frequently than before...

“I would also add eating disorders to that, and then the problems associated with puberty, which are probably the only things that are not surprising and have always been here,” says Markéta Trojková, who has been running the private psychological centre for children, Elpira, in Prague's Vinohrady district since last year. She herself is not a psychologist, but there are twelve therapists working there, and she also has speech therapists. In autumn, she will also expand to a clinic in Vysočany, where mainly diagnostic examinations, clinical psychology, clinical speech therapy, and perhaps even child psychiatry will take place.

The addition of further premises after less than a year is a result of interest that exceeded her expectations: “We try to book appointments a maximum of two months in advance and we constantly keep some capacity free so that we can also help acute cases. But in general we are basically full, and that is without any advertising.”

The thirty-four-year-old entrepreneur suspected that there might be interest in a children's psychological centre, and therefore plunged into it, despite having no experience in the field. She understood the potential two years ago when, still as a PR expert with experience from the PPF financial group, she began co-publishing the lifestyle magazine about education, Educa, and gained deeper insights into the Czech school system.

“I heard it from almost anyone who is involved in education in any way – that children's mental state and caring for it is a serious problem. And I myself was very interested in it,” she says, adding that in the end, the hardest part for her was the clash with bureaucracy – for example, when she tried to find out whether it would be possible to open a private pedagogical-psychological counselling centre, which are otherwise chronically busy and overloaded.

“I found out that none are needed and that new accreditations are not even being issued,” she shrugs. Yet it is not unusual for parents who are sent to the so-called 'PPP' centres by a school to obtain, for example, an assessment for a school postponement, an assistant allocation, or dyslexia confirmation, to wait several months for an appointment.

However, Trojková has forbidden herself from dwelling too much on how the Czech bureaucratic machinery works (or doesn't). Also on why it still relies heavily on paper documents, even though it could replace them with automation – which is allegedly the case with standardised psychotests, of which she has offices full and which cost her hundreds of thousands.

Instead of getting upset, she prefers to focus on obtaining certification for Elpira from the international association AIFREF. Among others, Professor Lenka Šulová, one of the greatest experts on developmental psychology, is helping her with this. She also acts as the centre's professional guarantor.

“I have a huge number of ideas and things that could be done in my head. I sense great interest in mother-daughter couples therapy. Schools are getting in touch saying they would like workshops and seminars, as well as the services of school psychologists. There really is a lot that could be done in this area and how we could help popularise children's mental health care,” says Markéta Trojková, who is also striving for accreditation as an educational institution so she can cooperate more intensively with public schools.

The idea of returning to marketing and PR is currently out of her mind – although child psychology is not a field where one can get miraculously rich, her centre, Elpira, is already able to support itself, and the interest of parents with children reassures her that the social demand will not disappear anytime soon: “For the first time, I feel like I'm doing something truly my own and something that is meant to change someone's life. That is, after all, a great deal.”