This year our main activities focused on delivering our suite of Teaching Recovery Techniques (TRT) to those helping traumatised children in Israel / Palestine and Ukraine.

In May we provided TRT training to professionals involved in evacuating children from Gaza on medical grounds. In June we initiated a multi-agency meeting with regional advisors for War Child, Save the Children and UNICEF, resulting in a joint response cascading TRT in the region and a collaborative response with our Norwegian sister agency the Children and War Foundation.

In September we provided TRT to a children’s hospital in Israel, and a second training for our group from May, which included teachers in contact with children in Gaza through online classes.

For those supporting Ukrainian children, we continued to deliver TRT training in Ukrainian as well as in English, reaching trainees in Ukraine and also in receiving countries such as Poland, Eire and the UK.

The multiplier effect of our cascade model was clearly documented in Ukraine, in research published in the Journal of Affective Disorders in March. This showed that after the Russian invasion of 2022, our emergency training of 17 Ukrainian psychologists and therapists enabled them to train 392 colleagues who then helped 6,877 children to cope with the trauma of war. That is a ratio of 1 direct trainee to 404 children helped.

The research showed that the cost of this was only US$50 per child, because our cascade model is so cost-efficient. Of those helped, up to 92% of children across all age groups and settings reported beneficial effects from TRT.

“Even in the chaos of war,” wrote our Ukraine lead Kateryna Yavna, who conducted the research, “effective mental health input can be rapidly and cheaply provided and should be encouraged.”

Meanwhile we also began working with UK agencies involved with children and young people from Afghanistan who have been affected by the recent conflict there.

On the research side, we worked to extend the scope of TRT through three adaptations of its methodology:

• We launched a new training in collaboration with the University of Manchester, ‘TRT Plus Parenting’, to support the parents of traumatised children.
• We devised a new training manual for those supporting younger children (age 6-8 years), which will be published in conjunction with the Children and War Foundation.
• We began upgrading our materials for children affected by traumatic bereavement.

In pursuit of our ambitious vision for the charity, in July we recruited six new trustees, with one more in January 2025. They bring valuable experience from a diverse range of backgrounds in psychology and mental health, international charities, campaigns and communications, organisational development and more. We also recruited new members to our committees for training, research and fundraising.

We are now actively seeking to appoint a new research lead, who will become a key trustee for the organisation as we develop new research projects and generate partnerships and funding for them. Interested individuals are encouraged to contact us about the possibilities in our research area.

In 2024 we continued to rely on donations from the public to fund our activities, and our fundraising committee worked hard to organise a busy programme of sponsored runs, rides, talks and concerts.  These included a glittering evening of music and words with international performers at St James’ Church in Piccadilly, and three sponsored walks by Dorset schools on World Children’s Day. We encourage all those who would like to support our fundraising efforts to get in touch.

Read our Annual Report and Accounts for 2024