Special Campaign: Support ICMC Work in Ukraine
Children bear the brunt of the emotional damage caused by the trauma of war. As thousands of children, some unaccompanied, started moving toward the safety of Western Ukraine during the first months of full-scale invasion in February of 2022, local Catholic facilities transformed their programming and, in some cases, their structures, into “Houses of Mercy,” or multi-purpose service facilities for the most vulnerable, destitute and desperate internally displaced and local populations. Here, particularly children with mental and physical disabilities, found safe and loving “homes” as well as professional care to help them improve and thrive.
But it also has been a sign of hope and inspiration to their caregivers how resilient these displaced people are and how much determination they have to overcome their present situations and to build a new and safe life for themselves and their children – whether back in their home territories or within the local communities that now welcomed them.
Since 2022, ICMC has been supporting the work of Chortkiv House of Mercy, St. Nicolas House of Mercy in Lviv, rehabilitation camps conducted by Caritas Spes in central Ukraine, and summer integration programs for young refugees in Latvia organized by the national Caritas, as well as summer camps and activities available at Catholic parishes throughout the country.
Donations amounting to $15,000 will allow us to ensure funding for three months of summer camps for internally displaced children at a single parish. About a hundred children are served through such programming and requests for future initiatives are coming in from many parts of the country.
Donations amounting to $30,000 will provide support for one year of salaries for psychologists and social workers for the entire house of mercy facility. ICMC is currently partnering with three such facilities and $100,000 would ensure uninterrupted services to hundreds of children for whom they care.
Mental health care professionals in Ukraine mobilized in unprecedented ways to address the emotional wounds caused by the horrific experiences of those fleeing the areas of active fighting and bombings. Subsidized and free psychological counseling which has been provided to anyone in need has proven to be of critical importance to keep the nation from falling into despair of loss and suffering.
ICMC has provided grants to cover personnel costs of Catholic outpatient mental health support centers spread throughout Ukraine. We have also provided funds to hire local professionals to establish office hours at the facilities housing up to 700 internally displaced individuals. In partnership with the Knights of Columbus, we have funded a series of comprehensive psychosocial rehabilitation workshops for returning veterans and their wives.
Donations amounting to $10,000 will allow ICMC to provide a year of free psychological support for young men preparing for priesthood who in a couple of years will be tasked with providing decades of pastoral counseling to the victims of war. They already have benefitted from ICMC’s support for Mental Health and Psychosocial Care training in all six seminaries of Ukraine, but such training also helped them to identify, and seek help for, the trauma and stress that they, too, have experienced as a result of their anxiety related to constant bombing in some parts of the country, and to the loss or serious injury of family members and close friends.
Donations amounting to $50,000 donation will help ICMC continue its partnership with other Catholic-inspired organizations to serve veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress helping them to learn healthy coping skills, preserve families and return to productive civilian life. Suicide prevention is a significant aspect of this work, and involvement of spouses and children are an important element in these treatment programs.
Donations amounting to $100,000 will enable ICMC to continue its support for Catholic parish-based mental health support centers staffed by local psychologists and social workers throughout Ukraine. These centers are established and operated by respective Bishops’ Conferences of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic Churches, and ICMC has an established track record of supporting their work in addition to providing additional capacity-building.
From the first days of ICMC’s involvement in addressing the mental health crisis in Ukraine, we have learned that there are several generations of Ukrainian professionals who received excellent training both locally and abroad. ICMC received requests to fund several translations and provided funding to publish training materials dealing with specific aspects of war trauma counseling and intervention. We were able to fund a series of workshops benefitting hundreds of local psychologists and social workers by European experts.
Answering the requests of the local Church to provide specialized training to seminarians and priests, we funded a year-long series of workshops in every seminary and many dioceses in Ukraine to train seminarians and ordained clergy, facilitated by a team of local psychologists, a theologian, and a bioethicist. This project in turn uncovered a great need for continued pastoral counselling training for priests and religious women and men, which we hope to expand and continue during the coming year.
Donations amounting to $50,000 would allow us to continue support of local lay and church professionals to deliver faith-based and evidence-supported mental health and psychosocial support, and to provide them with expanded capacity-building, especially related to delivery of mental health trauma care, and prevention and treatment of substance abuse and other addictions which are increasing amount the military and the general population in Ukraine.
During the current and the past two site visits to Ukraine, ICMC and CHA-USA-related visitors were struck by the dedication of Ukrainian lay and religious professionals to the spiritual and psychological improvement and wellbeing of their fellow citizens. Most of the psychologists, Religious Sisters, and priests whom we met have long forgotten about what it feels to take a day off or go on a vacation. The sight of immense suffering and hardships experienced ,on a daily basis, by both civilians and soldiers, makes these caregivers blind to their own needs and comforts. It is now becoming evident that such an approach to serving others is unsustainable for the caregivers in the long term.
ICMC is currently helping to develop and fund several “care for the caregivers” initiatives aimed at both lay psychologists and social workers as well as priests and religious serving in pastoral capacity as chaplains and counselors.
Donations amounting to $60,000 will enable ICMC to support the pressing need for resilience training and provide self-reflection and healing opportunities to the helping professionals. Recreational opportunities coupled with specialized training on stress relief have proven to be most effective in preserving and improving their sustained performance as caregivers for souls and bodies of others.
