OTTAWA – The Canada Ukraine Foundation announced the launch of its mobile application to provide mental health resources for soldiers, veterans, their families and the Ukrainian people at large who are exposed to mental health trauma associated with the military conflict.
The application was developed in Ukrainian with content provided by the Operation Stress Injury (OSI) Clinic of the Royal Mental Health Center of Ottawa to permit these individuals to self-assess and find support for critical mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and sleep issues.
Launched as “Mobilna Psycholohichna Dopomoha,” which means mobile psychological assistance in Ukrainian, the mobile application was developed as an expandable portal of information, with a series of assessment surveys that allows users to privately and discretely determine the type of referral they may need, and where they might be able to find those clinics and services in their region. Filled with additional resources, not only for clients, but also for health care professionals, the goal is to drive rapid diagnosis and allow users to find the help they need.
Funded by the Canada Ukraine Foundation, the application is based on the OSI Clinic Network mobile application developed by Veteran Affairs Canada in concert with the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Center.
“The goal of this application is to get mental health trauma awareness information into the pockets of Ukrainian people and connect them to the resources they need as quickly as possible,” said Victor Hetmanczuk, president of the Canada Ukraine Foundation. “By recognizing the signs of potential mental disorder as early as possible, we can help prevent it and provide necessary professional assistance as quickly as possible.”
The mobile application was developed by Purple Forge, the leading provider of mobile applications to governments and public agencies in North America. The applications were developed using a state-of-the-art mobile application content management system that will allow the applications to be updated on the fly by the Canada-Ukraine Foundation to share the latest content and information as it becomes available for users.
“It was critical to build the application rapidly due to the increasingly pressing mental health needs of veterans of the Ukrainian conflict,” said John Craig, the vice-president of sales and marketing for Purple Forge. “Mobile is also the ideal way to deliver these services, making it accessible across Ukraine on the devices used most frequently to access the Internet.”
The Canada Ukraine Foundation was established at the 18th Ukrainian Canadian Congress in order to coordinate, develop, organize and deliver assistance projects generated by Canadians and directed to Ukraine. CUF assists in the development of a democratic nation with a civil society that maintains and develops culture, tradition and language in Ukraine by strengthening strategic partnerships in Canada and Ukraine. For more information on the CUF’s work, see http://cufoundation.ca/.