EU4Health projects to provide mental health support to Ukrainian refugees

Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine has had and is still having an unprecedented impact on the mental health of people who have taken refuge in the European Union.

In this context, HaDEA has funded four projects supporting the call on promoting mental health under the EU4Health 2022 annual work programme. The call aims to implement promising best practices to improve mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in migrant and refugee populations.

• The Peace of Mind project aims to develop and implement a widely available, innovative, scalable and evidence-based approach to strengthen the mental health and psychological wellbeing of refugees and displaced people in Europe, with a focus on people from Ukraine. The project has already organised awareness-raising events in Poland as well as pilot trainings for health professionals of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The objective is to reach over 15 000 beneficiaries, including 700 health professionals in Poland, Germany, Lithuania, Belgium and France.
• Well-U aims to adapt and implement a series of tools and interventions to support refugee children and their caregivers in Italy, Greece, Hungary and Romania. This will provide the basis to collect and disseminate best practices, knowledge and training materials. The final objective is to conduct 18 trainings, train at least 270 lay professionals* and reach around 780 beneficiaries.
• The U-Rise project aims to support the implementation of mental health interventions adapted to the specific and diverse needs of refugees affected by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. More specifically, it aims to:
  • Reinforce the European network of Ukrainian and Russian-speaking mental health professionals to exchange practices;
  • Implement face-to-face psychological interventions in Slovakia, Poland and Romania;
  • Develop plans to scale up and transfer these interventions across the EU.
• MESUR will  facilitate treatment options for displaced persons with depression, addressing the treatment gap that displaced people often face. It will provide immediate mental health support by translating into Ukrainian and Russian the digital, evidence-based intervention tool “iFightDepression®” and making it available in Poland, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, Greece and Estonia. It will also organise trainings for health professionals and deliver a best practice guideline and an implementation toolkit.

^{*Lay professionals are non-professionals who hold professional knowledge about a subject.}

Background information

EU4Health, with a budget of €5.3 billion, is the fourth and largest of the EU health programmes. The EU4Health programme goes beyond an ambitious response to the COVID-19 crisis to address the resilience of European healthcare systems. The programme provides funding to national authorities, health organisations and other bodies through grants and public procurement, contributing to a healthier Europe.

HaDEA manages the vast majority of the total EU4Health budget and implements the programme by managing calls for proposals and tenders from 2021 to 2027.

Relevant links

Mental health policy

Healthier Together initiative

EU Solidarity with Ukraine