December 10, 2024

Responding to the traumatic impact of war on the well-being of many Ukrainians, Restart Foundation is a newly-founded, UK-based charity working to improve mental health in Ukraine. With an initial focus on schools and kindergartens, the charity’s goal is to create a positive circle of good mental health among children, teachers, and parents alike.

In Ukraine today, children are among the most psychologically vulnerable groups, and are some of the most affected by the invasion of their country. Millions of Ukrainians have had their childhood defined by the events of the last years: carefree childhoods taken away; many forced to re-locate from occupied territories; fathers fighting on front-lines; friends and relatives scattered all over the globe.

Childhoods defined by the trauma of war

These children are under constant stress and uncertainty, living in cities attacked daily by missiles and drones, spending hundreds of hours in air-raid shelters, seeing destruction in the streets around them.

These children do not have the skills and resilience to cope with this continued trauma; and neither do their parents or teachers. On top of the physical risks of war, UNICEF estimates that 1.5million children in Ukraine are at risk of depression.

Beyond the initial impact of trauma, it is well documented that childhood trauma can cause mental health conditions, substance use and risky behaviours in later life, inhibiting relationships, careers, health and life-chances. The Founders of Restart Foundation have the skills, knowledge and networks to respond– we feel compelled to take action.

The Safe Space Programme

Restart Foundation delivers the innovative, impactful and evidenced Safe Space programme, which was first designed and piloted in 2015, and has been tested and refined in Ukraine over almost 9 years. Designed to create a positive circle of mental health by working simultaneously with young children, their parents and their teachers, the Safe Space Programme ensures that all the key responsible adults in children’s lives are able to relieve the trauma and negative psychological impact of on-going war, and support on-going well-being and happiness.

Safe Space was co-created by one of Ukraine’s leading child psychologists, Oksana Zaleska, who is a key partner of Restart Foundation and our Supervising Psychologist. She teaches at the Kyiv Mohylanka Academy – one of Ukraine’s leading universities.

In our first year of operations, Restart Foundation has run 2 pilots and 2 funded programmes in kindergartens in Kyiv. The notable success of these programmes has sparked a huge demand and glowing feedback from parents and teachers. We have just secured funding to expand to a third kindergarten and, as soon as we receive further funding, we will be able to expand to many other kindergartens in Kyiv and beyond.

Next steps for Restart Foundation

The next step for Restart Foundation is supporting members of the military and veterans with rehabilitation. We have partnered with two of Ukraine’s leading military psychologists and a German firm which produces cutting-edge mental health TMS (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation) devices and plan to launch programmes to support these groups in 2025.