A mother-child intervention program aimed at healing psychological trauma in war-affected Ukrainian children has shown promising results, with three-quarters of participants experiencing improved mental health, according to a new study published in Global Health.
The organisation behind the camps hopes the experience will inform trauma recovery efforts in other war-torn regions.
The war in Ukraine escalated in February 2022 with Russia’s full-scale invasion. “War brings massive disruption in the totality of a child’s life,” says Dr Irwin Redlener, co-author and co-founder of US-based nonprofit Ukraine Children’s Action Project (UCAP). “Persistent danger and often active grieving all bring an abrupt end to ‘normalcy.’ Mothers are, of course, also traumatised themselves. But dealing with kids and their mums as a unit is extremely appropriate”.
The study evaluated the effectiveness of the recovery camps which used a mother-child intervention model and were conducted from September 2022 to July 2024 in Lviv, Ukraine. The camps sought to provide safety, screen children for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), refer children for evaluation and treatment, provide stress management skills and provide ongoing support.
Among the 1,291 children who participated, 438 had elevated stress or probable PTSD. About 80% of the mothers surveyed after the camp had used or were planning to use mental health resources. And, importantly, 75% of the children showed an overall improvement in their mental state after the camp.
The recovery camp program was developed and is led by Ukrainian founder Khrystyna Dudashvili, who recognised the urgent need to support the large numbers of children and mothers displaced from Ukraine’s occupied territories and front-line regions.
“Before launching the six-day camps, we conducted about 50 one-day camps for mothers and children who had been forcibly displaced. This gave us the opportunity to observe which support methods were the most effective for both children and their mothers,” Dudashvili told Cosmos.
“The six-day camp program was developed in collaboration with experienced psychologists and play therapists. Importantly, this program is designed not only for children but also for mothers. We understand that a mother’s emotional state directly affects her child’s well-being”.
Camp activities included play and art therapy, music, dance, breathing exercises, and yoga, to help children process trauma in a safe and supportive environment. Mothers took part in stress management sessions and informational support groups, while recreational counsellors received ongoing training in psychotherapy and worked closely with mental health professionals to coordinate care.
UCAP has become a major funder of recovery camps, which Redlener says is “one of the most effective and important projects we support in Ukraine.”
“The reason I was anxious to do this study and publish the report was specifically to show that a short-term, low-intensity program could be easily replicated, scaled up and executed widely.
“It is exactly what is needed by a country anxious to help children and youth get through the trauma of war as effectively and as quickly as possible.”
Julian Ford, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut, provided commentary on the recovery camp research, underscoring the value of such programs while highlighting a sobering reality — the children continue to live in active war zones. For many, the psychological toll is not only post-traumatic but also peri-traumatic, as their exposure to trauma is ongoing and unpredictable.
“Although therapeutic trauma memory processing may be beneficial for them by reducing posttraumatic stress disorder, while these children are still living in or on the periphery of a war zone, this approach to trauma-focused therapy requires extremely careful adaptation to address the continuing acute and unpredictable nature of exposure to traumatic events,” Ford writes.
Prevention & early intervention in children’s mental health
