Healing Arts Ukraine

Ukraine is facing a mental health emergency that its healthcare system cannot meet on its own. Healing Arts Ukraine, launched in Lviv from 23–30 June 2026, has been built directly in response to this shortfall — treating creative health not as a comfort but as a working part of the country's health response.

The programme forms part of the Jameel Arts & Health Lab's global Healing Arts campaign, developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization. It is led locally by Art Therapy Force, with support from the EU-funded Health Resilience in the Eastern Partnership Programme, and builds on the success of Healing Arts Lviv 2025.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates the prevalence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among the population of Ukraine at approximately 25%. Almost half of the population, or 57%, is at risk of developing PTSD.

Arts-based care has stepped into that space, not as an alternative to conventional medicine, but as one of the few options still available in some areas — and an increasingly evidence-backed one.

Programme

23–26 June: Lviv Summer School on Trauma-Attuned Arts Practice

The first training of its kind in Ukraine. The School aims to deepen understanding of the role of arts in working with trauma and to build a network of artists, educators, psychologists, and other professionals in the field of arts and health who will promote the trauma-attuned approach within their respective fields.

The School is based on the Trauma-Attuned Arts Framework, developed by Angela Kennedy, Darren Abrahams, Henry Redwood, and Veronika Skliarova, working alongside Ukrainian experts. Training takes place through lectures, workshops, and group work across five days and is open to artists, psychologists, health and social workers.

23–30 June: Showcase

20 free public events across Lviv. The Showcase brings together arts projects — performances, exhibitions, musical and visual collaborations, and workshops — that engage people affected by war in co-creation, or support them in making sense of and transforming their experience of trauma. Delivered in partnership with local cultural institutions including The Unbroken Theatre, The Lviv National Philharmonic, the Lviv Academic Drama Theatre named after Lesia Ukrainka, the Art Centre Jam Factory, and others.

27–30 June: Arts & Health Congress

Developing a national Arts on Prescription model for Ukraine. The Congress brings together professionals, policymakers, and international experts to advance evidence-based approaches to integrating arts into healthcare systems. The goal for 2026 is to develop concrete recommendations for implementing an Arts on Prescription programme in Ukraine. The Congress programme spans four days, covering arts and health practice and evidence, European frameworks, social prescribing models, and the development of a Ukrainian national model. Closed-door side events will address mental health and the arts, and social prescribing pilots in Ukraine.

Healing Arts is the Jameel Arts & Health Lab’s global outreach campaign in collaboration with the World Health Organization. It is realised through city and country-wide activations integrating academic symposia, cultural events, artist commissions, pilot projects, roundtables, workshops, and artist-led communications campaigns. Healing Arts is produced internationally by CULTURUNNERS in collaboration with local partners, and prioritises silo breaking between academic, cultural and policy communities to drive inter-disciplinary innovation, investment and policy uptake in the field.