How Ukraine's Art Therapy Helps Heal Children
After more than three years of full-scale war, many Ukrainian children rescued from occupied and frontline areas carry deep trauma — fear, loss, and disconnection. Some haven’t attended school for months; others were forced into Russian curricula under military supervision.
Their nervous systems have been in “survival mode” for too long. For them, the hardest thing is to believe again that the world can be safe. The Gaze reports on it referring to Save Ukraine.
At her first art therapy session, eight-year-old Lera sat quietly in the corner. When the therapist handed her a sheet of paper, she whispered: “I don’t know what to draw. Our house burned down.” After a few minutes, she picked up a pencil. She drew a roofless house under a black sky. A week later, she drew the same house again — but this time with windows, a tree, and the sun above it.
For children who have lived through war, words often fail. Through drawing, painting, or modeling with clay, they express emotions that can’t yet be spoken. Art becomes a language of healing — a way to feel, to trust, to choose. Art therapy helps children regain a sense of control: they decide what to create, what colors to use, what stories to tell — or even when to destroy their work and start anew. In that choice lies empowerment — and the first steps toward emotional regulation.
The Save Ukraine organization helps the children to overcome. They don’t ask children to talk about the war. They create a space where children can safely release what hurts. Clay calms and grounds them, plasticine allows for the safe release of aggression, and storytelling reawakens imagination. Sometimes it takes weeks of silence — and then one day, a child draws a flower. Or a home with sunlight. That’s the moment when recovery begins. “Healing starts where a child can choose again — the color, the story, the hero,” says Olena Sopruzhynska, art therapist at Save Ukraine.
Art therapy is not just “creative time”. It’s a scientifically proven method that reduces symptoms of anxiety, PTSD, and depression — and helps rebuild resilience. Through this approach, they help war-affected children find safety, regain trust, and rediscover joy. Each drawing tells a story. Sometimes painful, sometimes bright. The most important thing is that the child can live through it — and move forward.
See also: Hollywood Star Angelina Jolie Visits Kherson to Support Ukrainian Children
Also, read Ukrainian officials shared a List of Over 300 Children Abducted by Russia with its partners.