Free therapy for Ukrainian children and families

Hello! My name is Mei and I am a psychotherapist and mother to a toddler here in Chicago.

 

I am raising funds for Ukrainian child psychologist and renowned children’s author Nataliia Chub and her Emergency Psychological Care Project. Nataliia is a native of Kharkiv, an eastern city near the Russian border that has been under constant bombardment since the war started. While herself displaced by the war, she has been offering free therapy, psychological consultations, and psychoeducational webinars to pregnant people, children, and families. Some clients are refugees; many remain in active conflict zones in Ukraine.

 

Nataliia holds an average of 50 therapy sessions a week (twice a normal full-time workload) from her unheated improvised office. She also regularly collects diapers, food, medicine, and children’s toys, then organizes their distribution to families and elderly people in Kharkiv.

 

Funds collected will be used to distribute humanitarian aid to children, families, and the elderly and to support (i.e. buy food and basic supplies for) Nataliia and the other Ukrainian mental health professionals whom she will enlist to meet the enormous demand for services. The benefit is twofold: Ukrainians in need of psychological support will receive it, and Ukrainian psychologists in need of work and the chance to heal by helping others will receive that too.

 

While there are many worthwhile grassroots efforts in Ukraine, this one is special in its focus on mental health — specifically children’s mental health. If Ukraine and Ukrainians are to recover fully from these horrific events, it is crucial that the war’s youngest victims and their caregivers begin to heal from the trauma they are experiencing.