Bucha City Administration and NaUKMA Еstablished the Bucha Center for Psychological Rehabilitation and Health
SUPPORT OUR WORK
Dr. Serhiy Kvit, president of NaUKMA speaks about the role of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in establishing the Bucha Center of Psychological Rehabilitation and Health
The goal of the Center is to help victims suffering from psychological effects and post- traumatic stress due to the barbaric violence of the Russian unprovoked war and occupation. The Center provides professional help with individual therapy, group consultations and therapeutic activities for children, parents, and programs named “Happy parenting”, “Safe Space”. It practices psychotherapy methods based on CETA - evidence-based treatments for trauma and stress related disorders, helping veterans and their families, refugees, and individuals who suffer emotional maladies as a result of the shocks experienced during the attacks of war.
On his visit to the opening of the Center in Bucha, Dr. Serhiy Kvit, president of NaUKMA stated, “We need to rebuild our Ukraine, not only the physical premises, but we need to rebuild the human capacity, the human values, the peace of mind and intellectual potential of our nation”.
The Kyiv-Mohyla Center is staffed by professional psychologists involved in research, academic work, and direct contact with patients. Since 2014, the Center’s psychologists gained experience in Pokrovsk and Sloviansk. International partners assisted the Center since that time, including Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, UNICEF, USAID, Boston University School of Medicine, and Caritas Ukraine. Bucha is a special case in this war history, as war crimes were committed by the Russian army against civilians that are of inhuman cruelty. Psychologists with experience of work with war victims are treating this vulnerable population.
Ludmyla Romaneneko, a psychologist at the NaUKMA Mental Health Centre worked in Hirske, located close to Bucha, moved with her team to Bucha because the Hirske Center was destroyed by the Russian barbaric invasion. She stated, “We have many methods that we use for veterans and families who lived near the frontline, if we see that there is a bigger problem, we offer individual attention”.
The NaUKMA Psychological Health Center in Hirske before and after the Russian full-scale invasion.Her team moved to de-occupied Bucha to work with war victims. She noted that the situation in the east of Ukraine differs significantly from the occupation in Bucha, where there was specific violence against locals. During the occupation, Bucha became the center of mass shootings, marauding, violent rapes of women, children, and the elderly.
Specialists are treating these traumas and help affected individuals to find a new anchor to sustain them and some sense in their lives. Nataliya Zaretska, head of the Psychological Assistance Centre in Bucha, stated that this systematic work benefits not only civilians of the Bucha community, but it helps to gather evidence of Russian war crimes. Also, the resumption of work to rebuild the destroyed town of Bucha helps its people regain control of their lives and recover psychologically.
Mykhailyna Skoryk-Shkarivska, who was graduated from the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and currently is a deputy head of Bucha City Councul and Nataliya Zaretska, a head of the MaUKMA Psychological Assistance Centre in Bucha.
