DAISI Ukraine Project — «Development and Integration of Community-Based Mobile Mental Health Services in Ukraine»

The DAISI Ukraine project (Developing and Integrating Community Mental Health Services in Ukraine) commenced in June 2025 and is scheduled for four years. The project is implemented through a partnership between Queen Mary University of London and the Institute of Psychiatry at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, with the participation of London South Bank University and the Association of Psychiatrists of Ukraine.

The project's objective is to contribute to the establishment of an effective, modern community support system in Ukraine for people with mental health conditions through the development of mobile multidisciplinary teams (MMTs).

Participants in the project are individuals aged 18 to 65 who can provide informed consent for participation.

Two representatives from our organization were involved in the project's development from its inception. Within the framework of DAISI Ukraine, we are not only subjects of research but also co-researchers and co-developers.

Our experiences, understanding of our own situations, and the language we use to discuss them directly influence the questions posed in the research, the methods employed, and the project's outcomes.

At the beginning of the project, Professor Iryna Pinchuk and Doctor Semen Gluzman, along with international experts in human rights and service user involvement, established the SUPER Group. This group included Lidiia Martynova, the Chairperson of the NGO "Psychability."

From late September 2025 to the end of January 2026, the SUPER Group advisory body conducted approximately ten working meetings. The group's activities focused on ensuring meaningful and ethical involvement of people with lived experience in the project's implementation, as well as on generating high-quality feedback that could be integrated into research and project decisions.

A significant area of the group's work involved providing consultation on approaches to conducting qualitative research. During discussions, SUPER Group members repeatedly emphasized the limitations of using exclusively digital data collection tools and the risks of losing depth and context in responses. Conversely, they highlighted the value of qualitative interviews, in-person meetings, and open-ended questions, which allow for a better understanding of users' experiences and consideration of their needs in future project activity planning. The SUPER Group's activities not only provided high-quality consultative support but also laid a practical foundation for expanding stakeholder participation and further developing the project in 2026.

The model for developing mobile multidisciplinary teams is being created based on evidence-based science with a realistic approach to budgeting.

An important component is the involvement of people with their own recovery experiences in the work of MMTs, following the "peer-to-peer" principle. This makes support more humane and effective.

Within the project, MMTs already established in Ukraine will be evaluated, improved, and refined. The outcome will be the implementation of a national service specification – a National Standard.