Healing Arts Ukraine
Building on the success of Healing Arts Lviv 2025, the initiative is scaling up to become Healing Arts Ukraine — an arts and health campaign to support military health, veteran recovery and civilian resilience in times of conflict.
The project will take place in Lviv from 23 to 30 June and will bring together government and international institutions, healthcare professionals, educators, artists, and mental health practitioners working to integrate arts-based approaches into Ukraine’s mental health and psychosocial support systems.
The initiative combines capacity building activities with a sustained national advocacy campaign aimed at institutionalizing arts and health practices across Ukraine’s healthcare, education, and social protection sectors.
Why arts & health?
Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the country has faced an unprecedented mental health crisis affecting millions — including children, military personnel, veterans, internally displaced persons (IDPs), and civilian populations. The war has created an urgent need for accessible, effective, and culturally appropriate approaches to psychosocial support and mental health care.
The arts offer a way to respond to this crisis. Creative practices provide innovative pathways to process trauma, restore agency, rebuild social connections, and foster resilience. However, despite growing recognition of the arts’ value for health, the sector in Ukraine faces persistent challenges:
- Fragmentation: Practitioners and organizations work in isolation with limited coordination.
- Lack of integration: Arts-based interventions remain largely outside formal healthcare and social protection systems.
- Limited capacity: There is a shortage of trained specialists in trauma-informed arts approaches.
- Insufficient advocacy: Policymakers and funders are not yet fully aware of the evidence base and potential impact.
Healing Arts Ukraine addresses these gaps by preparing a ground for a permanent national platform and awareness campaign that:
- Advocates for the integration of arts interventions into Ukraine’s mental health infrastructure through a sustained national campaign
- Showcases the best existing arts-for-health initiatives to a broader public through curated presentations and public events, increasing visibility and access to proven practices in the field
- Facilitates cross-sector collaboration between cultural, health, and educational institutions
- Provides the capacity building activities, policy making exercises and Trauma-Attuned Arts School for professionals.
Components
Trauma-Attuned Arts School — June 23–26
The school aims to deepen understanding of the role of art in dealing with trauma and to create a network of artists, mental health professionals, educators, healthcare and social workers who will promote a trauma-attuned approach in their fields, strengthening society’s ability to respond to trauma.
The program will last four days and will include lectures by Ukrainian and international experts, practical workshops, and discussions. Up to 35 participants will be selected, with priority given to those who can integrate the knowledge gained into their institutions, educational processes, therapeutic sessions, and other professional practices.
Congress on Arts and Health — June 27–30
The four-day Congress will bring together representatives of universities, medical and cultural institutions, governmental bodies, and individual professionals working in the fields of arts and health. The programme will include keynote presentations, facilitated discussions, working groups, and presentations.
A key objective of the Congress is to strengthen cross-sectoral cooperation, consolidate and systematise existing research and practices in Ukraine, and develop policy recommendations for the Ministries of Culture, Health, and Social Policy regarding the integration of arts prescription and arts-based approaches into Ukraine’s healthcare and recovery systems.
Showcase — June 23–30
Concerts, performances, exhibitions, and special museum programmes — Lviv will host events that highlight the important role of art and culture in supporting physical, mental, and social well-being. A showcase of art projects will demonstrate the diversity of artistic approaches to dealing with the topic of trauma and engage a wide audience.
Healing Arts Ukraine is being spearheaded by Art Therapy Force as part of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab’s global Healing Arts initiative. The campaign is supported by the WHO Regional Office for Europe through the EU-funded Health Resilience in the Eastern Partnership Programme and is being co-produced by a national coalition of organisations working at the intersection of culture, healthcare, education, and policy, including the Lviv City Council, LME ‘Lviv radio’, the Institute for Cultural Strategy, the UNBROKEN Rehabilitation Centre, and King’s College London.
Might be interesting:
