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Report: Psychological support proved key for displaced Ukrainians returning to work
Before any business content was taught, the courses set out to make people feel safe. There was always a psychologist on call, even during air raids.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Natalia Zvirkova started having panic attacks.
At first, she did not even realise what they were, and she did not seek help. She told herself that people who remained in Kharkiv had it worse.
"You prohibit yourself to think about it," she says. "No, everything's fine."
She explains that Ukrainians do not really go to psychologists. You call a friend, or you keep it to yourself.
Zvirkova is one of 434 displaced Ukrainians who have come through TURBO, a retraining project led by Nord University in partnership with seven Ukrainian universities.
A new report finds that most are now back in work, and that what they valued most was the psychological support and the sense of belonging the courses gave them.
The teaching had to wait
Zvirkova's course was held at West Ukrainian National University in Ternopil, where Yuliia Palaniuk heads the international office.
The first sessions had opened with business and legal content, Palaniuk explains, and people struggled to express themselves, holding back even when they knew the answer.
"We should always start with the psychological aspect," says Palaniuk.
So the order was changed.
Before any business content was taught, the courses set out to make people feel safe. There was always a psychologist on call, even during air raids. Most of those in the room had come from the east.
"They moved to a different part of Ukraine, but they are still home," says Palaniuk.
Got help from animals
Even then, some would not speak in a group at all.
To reach them, the university's psychologist, Oksana Shandruk, turned to animals. She had found that people who stayed silent around others would relax around a dog.
Two German Shepherds were borrowed from the local police.
Horses were used too, with adults and children with special educational needs.
Palaniuk remembers a mother whose daughter had stopped speaking in public after the family was displaced and would talk only to relatives at home.
After a session with the horses, the mother said it was the first time she had seen the girl smile outside the house.
"I have goosebumps remembering this," she says.
Iryna Humovska, who teaches English on the course, watched some of her most closed-off students change around the animals.
"Some of them were very closed, and it's very difficult to make them talk. In order to relax them, we decided to do this," she says.
The method itself is not new.
Animals have been used to support many people dealing with trauma. What is new in this context, according to Humovska, is using them inside a university.
Natalia Zvirkova went to one of these sessions herself and saw why it helped.
"People stop thinking about the bad things,” she says.
Could start to rebuild
The focus on phycological support showed in the feedback from participants.
In Ternopil, 78 per cent had arrived under high stress. By the end, reported anxiety had fallen by 42 per cent, and most said their self-esteem had improved.
Once they were more settled, people could start to rebuild. Across the project, most had arrived without work, and three in four were in jobs months later.
What graduates valued most, according to the report, was the psychological support and the sense of belonging. They rated these more highly than the jobs themselves.
Important teaching points
The universities running the TURBO project brought in psychologists and built the psychological support into the courses. The new project report calls this an essential part of the model, rather than an optional extra.
Veronika Vakulenko is an associate professor at Nord University Business School and the project's institutional coordinator. She sees the same pattern in the participants' responses.
"Participants felt satisfied after the programmes and most got work or became self-employed. Many also rebuilt the hope for a better life inside themselves they had lost. For displaced people trying to integrate into a new community, that's really important,” she says.
The insights from the project offer important lessons for other organisations responding to future crises, whether caused by war or other disasters, according to the project leaders.
Natalia Zvirkova has not yet decided what comes next. She wrote a business plan for a café during the course, though she may return to teaching first.
But there is one thing she has no doubt about. Her grandmother lived through World War II and used to tell her everything would be fine as long as there was peace.
"I have one dream," she says. "To live without war."
Reference:
Vakulenko et al. Report 3: IDPs’ perception of the TURBO educational program, Nord University, 2026.
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