The Ministry of Internal Affairs will make maximum efforts to implement the Concept of Transition from military career to civilian - Tetiana Kovalchuk
The main challenge of today for the law enforcement agencies involved in repelling the armed aggression of the Russian Federation and the executive authorities concerned with social issues is to eliminate the fragmentary approach to social and professional rehabilitation measures of active servicemen and veterans of the ATO/PLO — former combatants of.
The only correct approach in this context, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is to implement the Concept of Transition from military to civilian, which came to us in the framework of cooperation with NATO and our American partners.
Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Tetiana Kovalchuk stated this during the International Conference “International Cooperation in Solving Problems of Social and Professional Adaptation of Servicemen, Veterans and Members of Their Families in Ukraine”.
“The Ministry of Internal Affairs resolutely supports and will make every effort to implement in the relevant bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs the Plan for the implementation of the military career transition system for 2021-2022, which is prepared in the framework of cooperation between the entities of the security and defense sector of Ukraine with NATO and which will be partially funded by the relevant NATO Trust Fund TO.
The concept of creating appropriate support lines for the PVC at the first and second levels is gradually being introduced into the internal processes of the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs by amending the current regulations and legal acts of the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the organization of relevant trainings for personnel”, - said Tetiana Kovalchuk.
The Deputy Minister stressed that in 2018, the Ministry of Internal Affairs organized a sociological study by anonymous survey of a third of the total number of police and military personnel of the National Guard of Ukraine and the State Border Service involved in the Joint Forces. One of the problems identified through the study was that the system of medical and psychological support of combatants needs radical changes, since 94.9% of the respondents did not undergo psychological rehabilitation among the ATO participants.
“That is why, together with specialized NGOs, we have developed the “Face to Life” project, which focuses on the needs of military personnel, police officers, civil protection service personnel, other categories of personnel of the security and defense sector, as well as combatants and veterans. In addition to the bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, on the basis of the Memorandum signed at the end of 2020, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Defense will also become participants of the project. The project provides for the development of an effective comprehensive mechanism for medical and psychological support of the staff of the SBU subjects, which will comply with the principle of “veteran-centricity”, which is today the cornerstone of almost all Western policies regarding veterans,” she said.
It is worth noting that within the framework of the project on the basis of the health institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Health, it is planned to apply the latest therapeutic methods, in particular Trauma-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy, as well as Desensitization and processing of traumatic experiences with the help of eye movement (EMDR), Short-Term Eclectic Psychotherapy (BEP), etc.
Tatiana Kovalchuk stressed that among other areas of social adaptation of veterans, it remains important to provide free legal assistance to persons who participated in the ATO/OOS in the so-called “legal clinics” operating on the basis of higher education institutions of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. To date, 10 above-mentioned clinics operate on the basis of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, information on the location and contacts of which is posted on the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the section “Citizens of Ukraine”.
The Deputy Minister thanked numerous international partners for their invaluable assistance, and also confirmed the readiness of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to participate in all effective initiatives to develop the system of transition from military to civilian.
