PEORIA, Ill. (25 News) – A group of medical professionals from Peoria are joining Omaha Rapid Response to travel to Ternopil, Ukraine to offer relief to more than 80,000 refugees.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 3.7 million people have been internally displaced since Russia attacked almost two years ago. Eighty-thousand of them went to Ternopil.
Omaha Rapid Response has been to Ukraine three times since Feb. 24, 2022.
The president of the disaster relief group, Ken Gruber, says they’ve been participating in medical clinics in and around Ternopil and have already built houses and shelters for refugees.
The last time the group visited Ternopil, the volunteers took an empty school and turned the classrooms into apartments. Gruber says 19 families moved into the upper floor; they hope to finish the lower floor next to provide more shelter.
The entire group of about 20 people will leave for Ukraine on April 5 and won’t return until the 21st.
“I thought, let’s see what I can do to bring a team together to be able to facilitate this and help people who, through no fault of their own, are dealing with some very challenging circumstances,” said Mark Rein, trip organizer.
The medical team will provide comprehensive care, from general wellness checks to surgical procedures. The mental health team will be working to teach resilience, and the construction crews will build housing.
Four central Illinois mental health professionals will join. Three of them work at The Antioch Group. They say they hope to offer healing from the traumas of war.
“There are so many hurting individuals over there,” said Lindsay Call, a licensed clinical professional counselor. “We hear a limited amount of information politically or what’s going on in terms of the war, but there are just so many children and families that need our help.”
Lindsay Call and Jessie Miller, a licensed clinical social worker, focus on child therapy. They will work with kids of all ages using a workbook called ‘There is Hope For Me’ and art therapy.
“Giving them those coping strategies so that they can handle the day-to-day things that are happening like the stomach aches or headaches or hard time falling asleep, maybe some defiant behaviors that are coming from a place of trauma,” Miller said.
Call and Miller also hope to work with parents and Ukrainian mental health professionals to share their knowledge for when they have to come back to the United States.
“It may look like training some of those professionals over there to continue on with the care once we’re gone. We’re looking into some group opportunities to try and reach as many people as possible, and we may look into providing some direct care,” Call said.
Other psychologists, including Dr. Steven Hamon, Blake Muehlich, and Lauri Budzynski, will work with Ukrainian professionals and hospital personnel on compassion fatigue.
“These people have been day and night seeing traumatized and living among traumatized country persons, so I think for them to understand in some ways to deal with their own compassion fatigue is one aspect of it,” said Dr. Steven Hamon, a licensed clinical psychologist.
Dr. Hamon also hopes to teach trauma response to pastors and parents.
Omaha Rapid Response is a non-profit that buys all the materials needed, including materials, medicine, and equipment. If you want to help, you can donate to their GoFundMe.
Peoria’s group, Mark Rein, Lindsay Call, Jessie Miller, and Steven Hamon, are also offering a chance for people to send an encouraging letter with loving wishes to a Ukranian family. All they ask is for the letter to be a sentence or two so it can be translated into Ukrainian.
Comments