Trauma Support Ukraine
The Trauma Support Ukraine team is a coalition between Trauma Company International, Safe & Sound and Sounds of Change.
One week after the Russian invasion, the Trauma Support Ukraine (TSU) team started offering online training and support to psychologists in Ukraine. These psychologists work daily with children, young people and adults who suffer from trauma-related complaints as a result of the war. This can include insomnia, stress, anxiety, depression, aggression, despair and suicidal thoughts… and the war continues.
After nearly two years of webinars to psychologists in Ukraine, we only see a greater urgency to continue as more and more people are likely to develop PTSD or other trauma-related complaints. The Ukrainian psychologists ask for help on a range of issues such as:
How to work with death and loss in war.
How to help children who are afraid and sleep badly.
How to deal with the aggressiveness or suicidal thoughts of young people.
Military psychologists need help in guiding soldiers who have lost limbs to amputation, as well as processing their own experiences.
Practical exercises, music and art
TSU provides practical psycho-education using symbols based on the Trauma Company method. Participants receive hands-on training, including practical, physical, and cognitive exercises they can immediately apply with their clients. Additionally, we incorporate music and art to stabilise and strengthen the resilience of our participants, non-verbally. There is room to ‘take a breather’ through sharing stories and experiences.
During each webinar, TSU provides live music for the psychologists, which has proven to be a valuable resource for them.
Do a lot with few resources
TSU has reached 490 psychologists in the past two years. Each psychologist works with between 5 and 100 people, meaning thousands of Ukrainian children, young people and adults have already been reached through these webinars.
The training contains very practical psycho-education, based upon the most recent neuroscientific knowledge on how to support children, young people and adults who are either trapped in, or have recently left an acute crisis situation. It covers all necessary topics related to stabilisation and in-crisis support, combined with strong practical tools such as breathing, body, cognitive and non-verbal techniques.
Self-care exercises for participants can prevent secondary trauma and/or burnout so also play an important role.
The trauma-sensitive support includes psycho-education and stabilisation of Ukrainian refugees by guiding them in a structured way, allowing them to increasing their resilience and, if necessary, referral to highly trained trauma therapists.
With our specialisation in psycho-trauma therapy , we train Ukrainian psycho-trauma therapists according to the latest neuroscientific knowledge and practices who then provide direct treatment to traumatised Ukrainian children, young people and adults.
The Trauma Support Ukraine team consists of experienced trainers and therapists Sander van Goor, Anne van de Ouwelant and Lucas Dols. The team is regularly supplemented with professionals from our international network.
Anne van den Ouwelant (Trauma Company & Trauma International) is an international trauma expert, trainer in trauma-sensitive support in conflict zones. Anne has over 12 years of field experience training local professionals who work in war and post-conflict zones such as the Yazidi refugee camps in Iraq (during IS occupation), Palestine and Bosnia & Herzegovina. She is a psycho trauma therapist, art therapist, TRE provider (tension and trauma releasing exercises) and cultural anthropologist.
Sander van Goor (Safe & Sound) is a music therapist, working with traumatised refugees, children and young people, SoC trainer, and developer of the Safe & Sound programme. This programme is an intervention in which music therapy is used in a solution-focused and culture-sensitive way for children with a refugee background, in order to strengthen their resilience. Sander is the founder / director of S&S and has been working for more than 8 years in post conflict areas such as Bosnia & Herzegovina, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, as well as The Netherlands.
Lucas Dols (Sounds of Change) is a musician, music education trainer, developer of psychosocial support programs and founder / director of SoC. He has trained various organisations and professionals in post conflict areas in the Middle East, including Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt and Iraq. Lucas has also worked in Ruanda, Ukraine, Serbia, Turkey, Greece and The Netherlands for more than 10 years. SoC now has six trainers currently deployed.
Read more about our work in the Ukraine in the newsletter below
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