The Fastiv municipality presented its experience and conclusions about changing approaches to work with defenders and their families at the experience exchange event “Promising Directions for the Comprehensive Implementation of Veterans’ Policy — The Case of the Fastiv Urban Municipality” organised by the Regional Office of U-LEAD in the Kyiv Oblast.
“We started a series of experience exchange events for heads of municipalities of the Kyiv Oblast in the urban municipality of Fastiv. The implementation of veterans’ policies at the local level in wartime is extremely important, as veterans are returning to the municipalities where their families live. They receive most of the services right here,” said Olena Ivanchenko, Head of the Regional Office of U-LEAD with Europe in the Kyiv Oblast.
Prior to the full-scale invasion, the veterans’ policy was not a priority. In fact, other than state benefits, work with veterans, military personnel and their families largely fell on public and volunteer initiatives. Today the situation has changed, and there is an understanding at the local level that local self-government bodies should also be active in this direction.
“The full-scale invasion destroyed our normal life. Under these new conditions, no one has all the answers. Now we have to think about solutions together, exchange the experiences we have gained in matters of veterans’ policy,” said Mykhailo Netiazhuk, Mayor of Fastiv.
According to him, first of all, to avoid doing “the wrong thing”, local self-government officials in the Fastiv municipality who work directly with the public undergo training on open-minded communication with veterans and military personnel. They are also working on the “veteran’s path” and looking for ways to simplify procedures, improving the operation of the one-stop shop for veterans. This requires changes to various procedures that local self-government has the authority to develop and approve. They are currently going through all of these documents so that veterans and their families do not have to go through a lot of offices to collect documents and have a one-stop shop for that instead.
Furthermore, local self-government continuously engages the Employment Centre that informs veterans about business opportunities and the state support for them. These programmes are available to both veterans themselves and their families. If the family of a veteran or an active military serviceperson decides to start their own business, then the defender will already have somewhere to return to from an economic perspective once they are demobilised.
However, this is only one part of the story. The other is that local self-government bodies continue to cooperate with volunteers and public initiatives and receive grant support. There are several projects in the Fastiv municipality that help defenders, veterans and their families. Two of them are based in healthcare facilities, but their efforts go far beyond treatment, rehabilitation and psychological support.
For instance, the Consulting and Informational Centre of the Moie Serdenko Project operates in the Fastiv Multidisciplinary Intensive Care Hospital. Initially, it was a volunteer project that provided information and support to IDPs. As of March 2022 alone, more than 2500 people received help here. Later, Doctors Without Borders joined the project. Now, the project provides support to families of the military personnel, because the servicepersons themselves have a request for support for their families, including psychological support.
Another project — “Rodyna 4.5.0. The Centre for Support and Medical and Psychological Rehabilitation for Servicepersons and Their Families” — operates in the Fastiv City Primary Medical Care Centre. It also started out on a volunteer basis and now works with grant support. The Centre provides consultations from a therapist, a social worker, separate medical and therapeutic services, advice from a career change expert and legal assistance.
But the main feature of the Rodyna 4.5.0 Centre is a case manager who directly helps the servicepersons to determine the scope of necessary assistance (psychological, physical rehabilitation). The manager develops a package of needs, refers the person to the relevant team practitioners and doctors and monitors the subsequent provision of the necessary services. In fact, the one-stop shop for veterans operates on the basis of the Rodyna 4.5.0 Centre, and the Fastiv municipality is committed to improving its functions.
Another initiative in the Fastiv municipality is the social project “Most Delicious Ukrainian Food”. It brought together women who were internally displaced and lost their homes, mothers and wives of fallen soldiers. As part of the project, this community of women provides peer-to-peer support and makes dumplings together. The initiative works based on grant support that funded the purchase of the necessary equipment. Dumplings are frozen using the shock freezing method and handed over to military field kitchens.
The Fastiv municipality is changing their approaches to working with veterans, military personnel and their families thanks to the cooperation between local self-government and volunteer initiatives, as well as the attraction of grant and charitable support.