Social Services for Veterans in Communities: Challenges and Needs

According to the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine, the number of people targeted by the veterans’ policy will be about 4-5 million after the war ends. At the same time, the public discourse is actively discussing the lack of a comprehensive veterans’ policy that would cover all areas of life of female and male veterans, be effective in their reintegration into civilian life, and provide for joint and coordinated actions of various specialized authorities, including the formation of policies for which they are responsible. This applies to social policy in particular, as it is important that its programs and measures take into account the actual needs and demands of female and male veterans and, if necessary, meet them.

With this in mind, we focused our research on the system of social services. We analyzed whether the existing system considers women and men veterans as recipients of social services, whether it takes into account the specifics of women and men veterans as recipients of services, and whether it is able to help women and men veterans successfully reintegrate into society and adapt to civilian life. An important element of building a social services system is to avoid stigmatizing service recipients. That is why we also talked to experts about whether the existing approaches to providing social services to female and male veterans are discriminatory and do not carry the risk of unconsciously separating them from other groups in society.

Please note! The material is available for review in Ukrainian only

Source: https://cedos.org.ua/researches/soczialni-poslugy-dlya-veteraniv-ta-veteranok-u-gromadah-vyklyky-ta-potreby/?fbclid=IwAR0z61qfRY6OYTcBP60I6rrsyne3bJMk7zQu9cP0ZZ-jurKSAbzEwJbsxFM