Mental Health Support for Preschoolers in Ukraine

Thank you for reading our updates, for sharing them, and for staying with the "Healing Forest" even when the news from Ukraine has been hard to take in. Every message, every donation, every forwarded link has told us the same thing: we are not doing this alone.

And now we have news we've been waiting to share.

The "Healing Forest" is coming back — and it's growing.

When our grant funding came to an end, we promised you this wasn't a goodbye. In the coming months we're starting a new phase, and this time the goal is to make the methodology travel further than our own team ever could.

Here's what we'll be working on:

Teaching the trainers. We're preparing a group of trainers from local NGOs and community organizations. Instead of one team travelling from town to town, there will be people in the communities themselves who know this methodology inside out and can pass it on. It's the difference between planting one tree and planting a seed bank.

More educators, more classrooms. We're running new training sessions for kindergarten and primary school teachers so they can bring the "Healing Forest" into their own groups — with the practical skills to notice when a child is struggling, calm a crisis, and hold a safe space day after day.

Bringing parents into the circle. Children don't heal in isolation. We're holding information sessions for parents and guardians about what children actually need for their mental health right now — how stress shows up in a four-year-old, what helps, and what to do when you don't know what to say. Many parents are carrying their own exhaustion; these sessions are for them too.

How you can help the forest grow

This next phase needs your support more than ever, as we work toward funding that can sustain the program long-term. If you're able to donate, it goes directly into trainings, materials, and reaching communities that have nothing like this yet. And if you can't, sharing our story genuinely helps — it's how new partners and new communities find us.

Somewhere in Ukraine there's a child who hasn't spoken yet, a teacher who doesn't know this methodology exists, and a parent who is quietly worried. Thank you for helping us reach all three.