Local Implementation of Psychological First Aid in Crisis Response

When a crisis hits a community, the people best placed to protect its children's psychosocial wellbeing are the local workers and volunteers already there. TGLF built its Psychological First Aid (PFA) implementation network around this principle in support of children affected by the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, initially with European Union funding through a project partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC, 2023-2025). Since September 2025, TGLF has committed to sustaining this locally-driven system independently for five additional years, until 2030.

Through TGLF's Impact Accelerator, local actors analyze the specific psychosocial harms affecting children in their own setting, draw on a shared library of 800+ practitioner-contributed solutions and a network of peer problem-solving, and then implement a concrete action each week, reporting results and refining their approach with support from others facing the same challenges. A voluntary network of European PFA Focal Points helps adapt implementation to local culture and context. The result to date is not a training record but a self-sustaining implementation network: staff and volunteers from 331 organizations, 76% of them from Ukraine, are actively applying this model in their own communities.

TGLF is seeking EU partners and funding to extend this implementation model beyond Ukraine to other crisis-affected populations, and to embed it within national mental health and protection systems.