Ukraine opens Resilience Centers to support veterans, volunteers, and displaced citizens

Recently, the Ukrainian government signed a bill on Resilience Centers.

These are community-friendly, barrier-free spaces providing social services: psychosocial support, assistance to veterans, legal aid, and employment counseling, as well as spaces for meetings and community activities, Rubryka reports.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said the state would provide funding for the service while local authorities provided premises and organized the centers' activities. He emphasized that every community should create such a space in the future.

The Resilience Program as a strategic solution for community cohesion in crisis times was presented at the expert meeting "Philosophy of Resilience," attended by representatives of ministries, NGOs, international organizations, civil society, and experts in social transformations engaged in the mental health protection of Ukrainians. 

Viktoria Titova, director of Big City Lab, presented a simple guide on transforming old premises into comfortable and barrier-free spaces without spending much money and effort.

The Ukrainian team has developed a Handbook — a guide to creating Resilience Centers for those communities implementing the All-Ukrainian mental health program "How Are You?" initiated by the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska. It was created by the urban bureau Big City Lab at the initiative of the Ministry of Social Policy and with the support of the Ukrainian agro-holding Astarta.

The handbook is free and contains recommendations for arranging spatial solutions (shelter, parking area for cars and bicycles, recreation area, foyer, children's playroom, accessible restroom, childcare room, group, and individual counseling), taking into account the psychological comfort of visitors and the smallest details that will help make the space barrier-free.

"Besides the direct resilience service, these Centers will provide services of public organizations, veteran services, and legal services, as they often go together to meet all the social needs of a person. And, of course, there will be employment services because our task is to return everyone to economic independence. This is a priority," said Oksana Zholnovych, Minister of Social Policy of Ukraine. "Everyone should feel dignified, have independent income, be realized, have the opportunity to earn, and understand that they are part of society through their own earnings and work."

As Viktoria Titova explained, such spaces will be created in large cities and small villages alike, so her organization looked at how to create a single guide that would explain "how to open a space anywhere that would be barrier-free, nice, and inexpensive to implement."

Viktor Ivanchyk, founder and CEO of the agro-holding Astarta, added:

"The idea of resilience should become a Ukrainian national idea, our desire to achieve victory and recover as quickly as possible afterward. Astarta has become a strategic partner of the Ministry of Social Policy in implementing the Resilience program, and this is very natural for us. We believe in the ultimate success of this initiative and will help methodologically, expertly, and financially. Most importantly, we will find and develop local leaders so that this program becomes a real-life force, bringing stability and self-sufficiency to the community itself. I urge new partners to join the program: businesses, NGOs, volunteers, and funds, to create such spaces in every Ukrainian community."

Background

Resilience Centers are places for comprehensive psychosocial support for everyone who needs it. In the first pilot centers, servicemen, their wives, and children receive assistance, as well as those who have lost their homes and have been forced to move to a new city. Anyone interested can download the manual for free at the link.

As reported, the Ministry of Social Policy plans to open 20 Resilience Centers in Ukraine based on Israeli experience. Here, 3.6 million Ukrainians will be able to receive social-psychological assistance.

An information  "How Are You?" campaign has been launched to raise awareness of the importance of taking care of one's own mental health. It is being implemented within the All-Ukrainian mental health program initiated by the First Lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska.

Rubryka also reported on how to preserve children's physical and mental health during wartime: the experience of leading psychologists.