Ukraine refugees face two-year wait for trauma therapy

Some Ukraine refugees in the United Kingdom are facing a two-year wait for the specialist treatment they need for trauma.

The National Health Service offers specialized therapy to help people who have fled persecution recover from their traumatic experiences, but in some parts of the country the support is very limited or non-existent.

Specialists told The Guardian newspaper that there is a concerning lack of support for traumatized children, and any delays to therapy would likely worsen the mental state of any person already suffering.

Emily Palmer-White, a psychotherapist and community manager at the charity Room to Heal, said that some areas are "treatment deserts when it comes to trauma".

"There are often extremely long waiting lists. I have been told two years. You can't separate the psychological from the practical - it's more difficult to help people if they're preoccupied with survival," she added.

Cornelius Catona, of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the UK refugee program needed to identify the signals of trauma much earlier.

Kirsty McNeill, an executive director at Save the Children UK, said: "We're not seeing any real urgency from the UK government about scaling up specialist mental health support, nor are we seeing very many new caseworkers being recruited."

Refugee Viktoriia Liamets, a Ukrainian child and family therapist who recently arrived in the UK, said some children may be particularly badly affected.

"People are in shock at leaving behind the place they call home," she said. "There are so many layers of trauma that it takes a while to process it. People need to be in a safe environment before they can start to do that. But being in a new country with a new language and no income can make them feel vulnerable. Your whole internal construction becomes unstable."

Meanwhile, the Observer newspaper reported that hundreds of refugees are being rehoused after they were offered homes with "unsuitable people".

Refugee charities have warned that women and children from Ukraine who sought sponsor households on social media websites such as Facebook risked being targeted by predatory men.

A source told the Observer that the UK government is "looking for bridging accommodation for a group of 600 refugees who have come to the UK, but the people they have come to stay with have been found to be unsuitable".

The government's Homes for Ukraine program has been criticized by charities, such as The Refugee Council, as "not fit for purpose", reported Sky News. The charity's chief, Enver Solomon, said the government has failed to provide simple, safe, quick routes for Ukrainians to get to the UK.

A spokesperson for the Home Office told the broadcaster that more than 95,000 visas have so far been granted, "with over 37,000 Ukrainians arriving safely in the UK, and thanks to changes made to streamline the service we are now processing thousands of visas a day."