LocationsCaring for minds near front lines
A psychologist on supporting civil protection staff and the families of fallen colleagues in Donetsk Oblast
Before Anna Humeniuk began her work as a psychologist for the State Emergency Service (SES) of Ukraine in Donetsk Oblast in 2016, she was not aware that the SES even employed psychologists, let alone how vital their role was. Since joining, she has fully dedicated herself to her work.
The SES serves as Ukraine’s central body for civil protection policy, encompassing emergency prevention and response, rescue operations, firefighting, humanitarian demining, and disaster management. Within this framework, Humeniuk’s role has evolved to meet the extraordinary demands of wartime.
Today, Humeniuk continues to participate in planned evacuations from frontline areas and responds to emergency incidents. She provides support to the families of fallen colleagues, including working with their children. She says that coping with these losses can be difficult, particularly for an empathetic person such as herself. But she has never regretted her decision to become an SES psychologist.
Humeniuk remembers a time when she and her team were working at the site of a strike. She recalls that after they had been there for two days, one of the families told her, “Anna, you’re in the right place.” She thinks about that moment every time the job feels overwhelming.
The psychological service of the SES primarily focuses on supporting staff, providing training, and conducting mental health recovery sessions. Psychologists also work with the children of first responders to help them grow and develop as they should for their age, rather than suffering the fate of “children of war.”
“I think their parents’ work also affects them,” Humeniuk explains. “One time, a colleague from Volnovakha who’d lost his home brought me his five-year-old son. The boy said, very seriously, ‘You know, I had a room there. My parents had just finished it for me.’ I saw a child who had grown up too quickly – he understood what was happening. Parents know it’s important to talk to a psychologist. They’re dealing with their own stress, and some children don’t always know how to express what’s troubling them.”
The number of people seeking help from the psychological service is increasing.
Humeniuk and her colleagues also work at humanitarian hubs across Donetsk Oblast. To provide timely support to residents of remote settlements, mobile teams of specialists travel to them. One of the specially equipped vehicles that enables their work was provided with support from UNDP as part of its flagship partnership with the EU, “EU4Recovery – Empowering Communities in Ukraine.” Through this partnership initiative, modern vehicles have also been delivered to the SES psychologists in Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts. Another vehicle was supplied by UNDP with funding from the Government of Denmark to Mykolaiv Oblast.
“We become psychologically drained because we work with other people’s emotions, and that’s not easy,” Humeniuk shares. “What helps is family, home, and hobbies.” To recover and become even more effective, Humeniuk joined a supervision programme organized by the EU and UNDP. In Lviv, together with colleagues from other frontline regions like Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv, she learned recovery techniques, relaxation exercises, and ways to process complex emotional states.
“I noticed there that all my colleagues were surprised that something was being done for us – usually we’re the ones doing this work,” Humeniuk recalls. “It was also incredibly valuable that we were allowed to step outside and be alone if we needed to. At other training events, you’d have to stay seated until the end, even if confronting your emotions felt uncomfortable.”
“A psychologist is just a person, too – we can be afraid. (But) we keep working even when we’re not okay.”
Despite all the challenges, Humeniuk remains committed to her work.
“People joke during evacuations; they want to feed us and children offer sweets,” she says. “There’s such sincerity in their emotions. And as long as you’re helping people feel calm and heal, you’re in the right place.” As long as we are helping people find calm and healing, we are exactly where we need to be.”
Photo credit: Danylo Pavlov / Reporters / UNDP in Ukraine
