On October 20-22, 2022, a second “Children and War. Teaching Recovery Techniques” training was held in Chernivtsi, in cooperation with the Yuriy Fedkovich Chernivtsi National University. It was held as part of the “Helping Hand for Ukraine” Project. The training was conducted for 26 participants by the Project trainers, Iryna Sukhova and Tetyana Oboyanska. In the future, they will help young and adult Ukrainians to improve their psychological health and overcome the consequences of war thanks to the unique “Children and War. Teaching Recovery Techniques” methodology – an effective tool of psychological self-help for people with traumatic consequences of war.
The training was held with the financial support of the Canada-Ukraine Foundation (CUF). The grant expands a trauma therapy program to train the trainers to work with children and adults with war trauma. This is already the second training out of the 12 planned. The project is implemented by the “HOPE worldwide Ukraine” Charity Foundation with the support of American and Canadian partners, HOPE worldwide (USA) and HOPE worldwide Canada.
“Participants note the relevance of the topic,” says Iryna Sukhova, chief psychologist of the “Helping Hand for Ukraine” Project, “since there are many internally displaced people in Chernivtsi who have lost their homes and relatives, and experienced terrible traumatic events during the war. Our training conditions have been quite extreme. The entire training was accompanied by air alarms, and for our own safety we went down to the shelter every time. But even there, in the damp dark shelter, the thirst for knowledge and the desire to help did not fade away, the training continued. As one of the participants said at the final round: “If in a dark bomb shelter during the threat of shelling, someone wearing vyshyvanka continues to conduct the “Children and War. Teaching Recovery Techniques” Program – our Ukraine is invincible!”
Feedback from training participants:
“Everything was relevant and very much “on time”. Trying out all the techniques personally was the most useful. Thank you for the opportunity to be a part of the “healing” of our Ukraine!” – Evgenia Dudka
“I managed to touch on my personal traumatic events and process them. All the techniques and tools learned during the training were useful. I am grateful for the new knowledge and skills that I learned during these 3 days” – Maryana Pernai
“For me, the topic of the training was very useful and relevant, because I felt a lack of practical knowledge on how to help others and myself as well. I received a huge “backpack” of practical skills and healing techniques. I am sincerely grateful to the trainers and the organizers. I received plenty of positive emotions and a desire to implement what I learned” – Mykola Ilashchuk
