On 19 May 2022, Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska expressed the urgency of addressing the psychological needs of Ukrainians affected by the war, especially children and young people. In announcing the national mental health program, she said: “We want to do this with you based on your best experience.” The Ukrainian First Lady’s call did not go unheard.
The Warsaw Conference “How to Ensure and Promote Mental Health During War: Assessing and Responding to the Impact of Trauma on Child and Adolescent Development”, organized by the Foundation Child and Telefono Azzurro, with the support of the Italian Government and the World Psychiatric Association, gathered mental health professionals, academics, policymakers, civil society organization, clergy, and private sector representatives.
The conference resulted in an urgent call for action to support Ukraine in addressing the mental health needs of their children. In her welcoming remarks, Poland’s First Lady, Agata Kornhauser-Duda said: “We cannot let this evil leave a long lasting destructive mark on the mental conditions of the weakest and most defenseless victims of the war.“
The Russian war against Ukraine targets children: millions have fled the country or have been internally displaced or deported. Tragically, many of them are unaccompanied, while most have already been traumatized by the horrors of war, including the loss of their parents, bombing, air-raid sirens, fleeing for their lives, living in bomb shelters, and being shot or raped.
Poland and other border countries have been very generous in their response to this crisis. Our joint task is to add to these efforts by supporting institutions, strengthening services, and allocating resources to urgently address the child and adolescent mental health needs in Ukraine and the countries hosting Ukrainian refugees.
Much has been done. But with more work ahead we will help build a broad-based and participatory network to safeguard the mental health and futures of children in Europe and around the world. Sensitive to context and culture, the network will promote action by child and adolescent mental health professionals, and relevant policymakers who will help develop policies and initiatives tailored to the unique needs of traumatized children and families. This must be done with the greatest respect for the cultural differences and the unique needs of each child. Planning and implementation must begin now, sustained by a network with expertise in child and adolescent mental health and trauma. The rights of children must be guaranteed also in time of crisis, when children must be treated with dignity, heard, informed, and involved in shaping their futures.
Ukrainian and Polish colleagues are at the forefront of this collaborative initiative. They shared first-hand accounts, the existing efforts, and the consequent needs. These include connecting and cooperating with Ukrainian authorities, its mental health community and its civil society, with ongoing guidance from Ukrainians who generously recognize that innovation and success in Ukraine benefit the rest of the world’s children survivors of war.
The Conference, followed by an expert workshop on 28 May, included extraordinary participation of many experts and leaders in the international mental health community, as well as Ukrainian and Polish colleagues, formed a significant starting point, with a credible scientific base for the process that will move from words to actions.
Participants to the Warsaw Conference will take the following steps to address the immediate and long-term urgent and expanding mental health needs of children, adolescents, and their families:
1. Broadly share their knowledge and best practices for serving children and adolescents victims of war, with training and supervision for Ukrainian and Polish mental health care givers.
2. Reach out to the scientific, governmental and non-governmental community, starting in Ukraine, to develop strategies and actions to assist war victims and build long-term resilience.
3. Develop strategies to provide a continuos flow of essential public and private mental health resources.
4. Create an international youth mental health crisis awareness campaign, starting with Ukraine.
5. Create a user-friendly, freely available repository of resources, including scientific materials, psychoeducational resources for children, parents, and caregivers who are coping with post traumatic stress.
6. Engage with the tech and social media community to optimize opportunites for the dissemination of information and services, digitally and in-print, building on existing initiatives.
7. Make mental health care more broadly accessible by optimizing the use of innovative tools and online information and service delivery, as well as working with tech companies and clinical innovators to promptly develop new tools for delivery of mental health training and mentoring, using the metaverse, machine learning, artificial intelligence and other technologies, via tablet, smartphone, and the web.
8. Develop a scalable plan for expanding community-based, high quality mental health services by training mental health professionals, as well as family doctors, social workers, nurses, teachers and volunteers, on the use of available, evidence-based mental health prevention, screening/assessment, early intervention, and treatment.
9. Initiate high quality research programmes to rapidly develop novel evidence-based interventions that are culturally sensitive and provided in multiple languages.
10. Create a 24/7 help line for mental health and trauma available for Ukrainian youth in and outside Ukraine, in cooperation with Ukrainian relevant counterparts.
Under the auspices of the Italian Government, a follow-up international conference was convened in Rome in autumn 2022 to finalize an international action plan and a roadmap to address to the growing mental health crisis affecting children, adolescents, and their families, with particular focus on Ukraine.
Children are our present and our future. We cannot allow a lost generation. We must do more, faster, and better to invest in their mental health.