Results of the meeting at the Department of Social and Veteran Policy of the Kyiv City State Administration

We have two pieces of news for you: good and bad. The good news is that we finally had our long-awaited meeting with the Department of Social and Veteran Policy of the Kyiv City State Administration, which was appointed by the Kyiv City Council's Standing Committee on Health, Family and Social Policy. The bad news is that the service we offered, “Assistant to a person with a mental disorder,” was perceived as unreasonable and they suggested that it be added to the services already available in the Classifier of Social Services.

The meeting was attended by all units of the network of Centers for Social Services in Kyiv. Ms. Kateryna Vashchenko, an assistant to Vitaliy Nestor, the deputy of the Kyiv City Council, provided legal support to the working group of the NGO “Psychabiliti”.

Unfortunately, at the meeting we failed to convey to the representatives of the Department the need to create the service “Assistant to a person with a mental disorder” in accordance with its purpose and the main tasks of the “Assistant”. We once again faced the substitution of the concept of “active social life” for “care” and the proposal to divide the “Assistant” service into parts and provide it within the existing system of social services. This contradicts the very idea of the change we are fighting for - to provide comprehensive individualized support on the path to independent living for people with mental disorders.

Bottom line: The Department of Social and Veteran Policy of the Kyiv City State Administration refused to support us in developing the concept of the “Assistant to a Person with a Mental Disorder” service and in conducting a pilot project. A ray of hope is that the Department did send a letter to the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine with a request for the possibility of implementing such a service at the community level in Kyiv. However, Lubov Riyako, Deputy Director of the Department, immediately advised us to develop the service ourselves and apply for a competition for social service providers. But without government support, any grant structure is doomed to disappear. The sad story of the creation and termination of the Center for Medical and Social Rehabilitation of the Psychiatry Clinical Hospital is a good example.