“Strong Hearts”: Children of Heroes Charity Fund Implements a Project along with International charitable organization ‘Charitable Foundation ‘SOS Children’s Villages’ Ukraine

The “Children of Heroes” Charity Fund  with the support from International charitable organization ‘Charitable Foundation ‘SOS Children’s Villages’ Ukraine has launched the “Strong Hearts: Psychosocial Support for Children of Heroes” project. It aims to provide comprehensive psychological assistance to children who have lost one or both parents due to the war, as well as to their legal guardians.

The full-scale war in Ukraine has claimed the lives of thousands of parents and robbed children of their sense of security. In frontline and war-affected regions, there is a particularly acute shortage of qualified psychologists and safe places for recovery. In the five targeted regions of the project alone (Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv, Odesa, and Sumy), there are 2,704 of the Fund’s beneficiaries who are in need of professional psychological support, yet access to it is critically limited. This exacerbates isolation, increases anxiety, and complicates the adaptation of both children and their caregivers.

The “Strong Hearts” project was created to help overcome the effects of psychological trauma and restore children’s inner resilience. It includes two main components:

• A psychosocial support and recovery camp in the Carpathians. Children will participate in art therapy sessions, as well as group and individual sessions with psychologists, while their guardians will attend psycho-educational lectures. After returning from the camp, participants will be able to receive additional individual consultations to reinforce the results.
• Individual psychological consultations for children and their legal guardians. Over a period of four months, approximately 192 sessions are planned for 50 beneficiaries. These sessions will help them process the experience of loss, reduce anxiety, and restore mutual understanding and emotional connection between the child and the adult. All sessions will be conducted by certified psychologists, taking into account the individual needs of each family.

The project will run from August 1 to November 30, 2025. A camp is planned, along with 192 individual consultations. 84 children aged 3-7 who have lost one or both parents will participate, along with 76 of their guardians from the five regions. Another 30 children and adults will receive individual psychological support outside of the camp. In total, 190 people will receive assistance. 

Together with SOS Children’s Villages Ukraine, we are creating conditions for the children of Heroes to restore their inner resilience and confidently step into the future.

This material was created as part of the “SOS Children. Emergency Assistance Program” from the international charitable organization SOS Children’s Villages.