On 28 September, in Kyiv the Council of Europe Project “Internal Displacement in Ukraine: Building Solutions” in cooperation with NGO “Vita Valens” organized an expert discussion on characteristics of provision of psychosocial support to internally displaced persons in Ukraine.

The event aimed at exploring the areas for improvement the quality of assistance provided to IDPs as well as at reflecting on the needs of the state and non-state actors working in the field.

Participants of the event were welcomed by Ms Iryna Kalupakha, Head of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry for Temporarily Occupied Territories and Internally Displaced Persons of Ukraine and Ms Olesya Tsybulko Head of the Expert group of the Directorate of Social Services and Integration of the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.

Stressing on the importance of the issues discussed Ms Kalupakha presented the recent initiative of the Ministry and the World Bank Office in Ukraine to implement a pilot project “Psychological Support to the Population Affected by the Conflict in Ukraine”. It has two components: a program for improving community resilience and low-intensity psychological interventions. Within the first component, local specialists, managers and volunteers in the health sector will be trained. Among other this program will focus on training medical personnel to provide support the persons suffered from PTSD. Activities under the second component will lay the foundations for providing low-intensity psychological interventions.

During the activity participants shared their experience in the field of mental health protection of IDPs, and exchanged on the approaches and tools which would facilitate the access of internally displaced persons to quality counseling and treatment.

More than 30 psychologists, psychiatrists from state institutions and NGOs, as well as experts-academics and representatives of international organizations were present.

As a follow-up of the event the Project foresees the possibility to support user-friendly referral tools to be used among practitioners working in the regions.