Psychosocial support
Ukraine is going through the situation, which is beyond the usual normal human experience. It caused significant violation of human daily life, affected health of population, resulted in great loss of lives, property and so on. All these things have an extremely negative impact on every family. Some families were forced to leave homes and undergo a crisis which is related not only to property losses, but social losses too. Other families have lost their loved ones. Somebody has already returned home and tries to adapt to a peace-time society after the military experience. One way or another, there is virtually no person in Ukraine detached from the conflict.
Any crisis is drastically associated with stress and causes social and psychological consequences. A person may experience a feeling of loss of control over own consciousness when he or she fails to control intense and unwanted memories. A person often sees no way out of this situation. However, both an individual and the family always have internal resources. Psychosocial support is precisely focused to unveil an inner capacity of individual and community as a whole for development of stress-coping mechanisms and resilience strengthening.
The Ukrainian Red Cross Society does its best to improve lives of the most vulnerable people affected by the crisis in Ukraine. This includes not only humanitarian assistance but also attentive attitude to psychological and social needs that arise during crisis events and thereafter. Since 2014, the URCS has been implementing the program ‘Psychosocial Support to Vulnerable Populations in Ukraine’ in Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, Ternopil, Kharkiv, Kherson and Chernihiv regions and the city of Kyiv.
The outcomes of work confirm that beneficiaries became more interested in communication and not so alone. Support groups, which were created in the course of the program, provide an atmosphere of trust and security. The program beneficiaries began to seek for alternative sources of funding. Having received grants, for example, for creative workshops, they return to their support groups as a group leader rather than a beneficiary. Thus, creative activities and absence of conflicts effectively helps to restore individual’s emotional balance.