Trauma Screening & Healing for Ukrainian Children

Healing doesn't wait for the war to end - it has to continue during it. That's the belief that drives everything we do at the War Survivors Institute. And it starts before a single session ever happens: at the very beginning of each camp, when we sit down with our partners to understand who these children are and what they've already survived.

Why we screen first

In Ukraine, we don't arrive and simply start helping. Together with partners like Ukraine Volya Foundation, we begin every camp by identifying the children who are carrying the most: the ones who've lived through sirens, displacement, the absence of a parent, the disruption of everything familiar. Using two tools, the Refugee Health Screener-15 (RHS-15) and the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale for Youth (DASS-Y), we make sure the children who need us most are the ones we reach first. It's how we make sure your support goes where it matters.

RHS-15: A Tool Built for This

RHS-15 is a short screening tool designed specifically for people who've lived through war and displacement, validated for adolescents 14 and older, and used to flag real distress quickly and reliably, even in the middle of a busy camp intake. It carries particular weight for WSI: RHS-15 was developed through the Pathways to Wellness project in King County, Washington, in partnership with our  CEO and psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Hollifield. This isn't simply a tool we chose to trust - it's one our own leadership helped build.

DASS-Y: Understanding the Full Picture

Knowing a child is struggling isn't enough. We need to know how. We use DASS-Y, a version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales built specifically for children and adolescents, to tell the difference between depression, anxiety, and stress, instead of treating every child's pain the same way.

In practice, that means:

- A child who's anxious but not withdrawn gets a different kind of support than a child who's gone quiet and low.

- We can watch a child's progress over time with real numbers, not just a guess from a photo.

- We can show you, our donors a change - not just a moment that looks hopeful.

What We Saw in Ukraine

During our July visit, working alongside Ukraine Volya Foundation, our team recommended DASS-Y screening at the start of camp to find out which children were carrying the most distress before deciding who needed support first. And it held up in the room: the children the screening pointed to as most affected were the ones who, later, visibly softened during the relaxation and art therapy sessions that followed. That moment is why this work matters to us. It's proof that healing doesn't have to wait - that even in the middle of everything a child has lost, there's still a way back to feeling safe, even for one afternoon.

Why This Matters for You, Our Donors

It would be easy to just show you a smiling child and ask you to keep supporting. But we want you to see what makes that smile possible: a careful process, done in partnership with people on the ground who know these children, that makes sure every gift you give reaches the child who needs it most.

Thank you for being with us on this journey. Every gift helps us keep finding the right children, and giving them the right kind of help. 

Screening first means the child who needed us most wasn't a guess. They were found, on purpose, before we ever sat down together - and that's the difference your support makes possible.

Peace and Healing,
The WSI Team

Healing doesn't wait for the war to end - it has to continue during it. That's the belief that drives everything we do at the War Survivors Institute, and this July, it took us back to Ukraine.

Despite our ongoing work in Ukraine, this July our CEO and psychiatrist, Dr. Hollifield, traveled to the country himself because some work can only be done in person, sitting next to a child who needs it.

Dr. Hollifield led hands-on relaxation sessions using acupuncture techniques, paired with art therapy, for children from frontline communities and other vulnerable groups. For many of them, it was the first time anyone had offered them a way to simply feel calm - no words required, just a safe space and someone who showed up.

We watched children who carry more than any child should: the sound of sirens, the absence of a parent, the disruption of everything familiar - slowly exhale. And then tell us, in their own words:

"I feel so much better."

"I want to do it again."

"Thank you for being with us."

Children smiled. But if you've ever wondered whether your support actually reaches someone - this is your answer. It reaches a child who, for one afternoon, got to put their pain down.

This is what psychological support looks like when it works: not an abstract outcome, but a child who exhales, who smiles, who asks to come back. Every session you help fund becomes a moment like this one.

Thank you for being with us on this journey. Your continued support is what makes moments like these possible - for one child, and for the hundreds more we hope to reach.

With gratitude,
The WSI Team