The Ukrainian Mental Health Programme Named After “How Are You?”

"Ти як? (Ty yak?)" is how you ask someone close to you, in Ukrainian, "How are you doing?" In Ukraine, this short question has become the name of the country’s mental health programme. Its formal name is the "All-Ukrainian Mental Health Programme," and the official site describes it as an initiative proposed by First Lady Olena Zelenska.

The programme is not a single law or institution; since 2022, when Russia’s full-scale invasion began, it has been built up in stages — through cooperation with WHO, a coordinating body under the Cabinet of Ministers, and new legislation. What follows is based on official sources as of September 2026.

2022: From a Speech at the World Health Assembly

According to a WHO article, Zelenska, speaking at the 75th World Health Assembly held in May 2022, described the toll the war was taking on the mental state of Ukraine’s people. She spoke of residents of Kharkiv, which had been under continuous shelling, who had lived in the metro for three months and could not bring themselves to leave the shelter and return home.

On November 14 of the same year, WHO and Ukraine’s Ministry of Health signed a memorandum of cooperation on mental health. According to WHO’s announcement, the memorandum aims to make mental health support available through primary care, such as a person’s own family doctor. WHO’s Representative in Ukraine, Jarno Habicht, said at the event that more than 10 million people in the country needed mental health support. Then–Minister of Health Viktor Liashko explained that a new payment category had been added to the state health insurance programme to raise compensation for family doctors who address mental health problems in primary care.

WHO also reports that on December 9, 2022, the First Lady and then–Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal announced a roadmap for an emergency response on mental health and psychosocial support.

Bringing WHO’s mhGAP Training to Family Doctors

One pillar is WHO’s Mental Health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP). It is a framework for training non-specialist family doctors, nurses, and others to recognize and respond to common mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide risk; according to WHO, it began in 2008 and is used in more than 100 countries.

In Ukraine, training has been carried out since 2019, and according to WHO, 655 people had completed it by July 2022. In a December 2022 article, WHO wrote that more than 10% of Ukraine’s primary care staff were expected to have completed mhGAP training by the end of 2023. Ukraine’s family-doctor system is explained in our article on how, in Ukraine, you choose your own family doctor regardless of your address and file a "declaration".

The "Coordination Centre" Set Up by the Cabinet of Ministers

The programme itself is not the name of a law or a Cabinet decision. The first piece to take shape as a state mechanism was the "Coordination Centre on Mental Health," which the Cabinet of Ministers established through Resolution No. 301 of March 30, 2023.

The regulation attached to the resolution positions the Centre as a "temporary advisory body" of the Cabinet, with the purpose of coordinating ministries, local governments, and organizations "to build and implement the All-Ukrainian Mental Health Programme quickly and effectively." Its duties include monitoring the programme’s implementation, taking part in drafting mental-health legislation, and analyzing the implementation of the "National Action Plan on Mental Health for 2023–2024." According to the programme’s official site, the Centre came to be headed by Oksana Zvitnieva, executive director of the NGO "Barrier-Free (Безбар’єрність)."

A May 11, 2023 article by the administrative service centre "Дія Центр" (Diia Center) explains that the Ministry of Health coordinates the programme’s development and implementation, with WHO as the expert partner and the NGO "Barrier-Free" as the implementation partner.

The Mental Health Law That Came Into Operation in February 2026

As the institutional foundation, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the law "On the System of Mental Health Protection in Ukraine" (No. 4223-IX) on January 15, 2025. It was published in the parliamentary newspaper Holos Ukrainy on February 7, 2025, took legal effect the next day, February 8, and actually came into operation a year later, on February 7, 2026. (On the practice of distinguishing the date a law takes legal effect from the date it comes into operation, see our article "’-IX’ Means the 9th Convocation of Parliament: A Guide to Reading Ukrainian Laws in the Original".)

The law defines mental health as part of overall health — not merely the absence of mental illness or behavioral disorders, but a state of well-being in which each person can realize their own abilities and cope with the difficulties of life. On that basis, it sets out principles for state policy, including cross-sector cooperation, equal access to support, and eliminating stigma and discrimination.

• Certification of mental health professionals is voluntary for six years from the law’s promulgation, and becomes mandatory after that
• Mental health services paid for from state or local budgets can be provided only by certified professionals from three years after promulgation
• The Cabinet of Ministers is required to establish a new "National Commission on Mental Health" within one year of the law taking effect

Even before this, the Cabinet of Ministers had approved, on December 27, 2017, the "Concept for the Development of Mental Health Protection through 2030," and this concept has set the long-term direction of state policy up to now.

What the Programme Provides

As of September 2026, the official site (howareu.com) offers the following points of entry.

• Self-care: materials on things you can do yourself, such as coping with stress and breathing techniques
• Online: guidance on receiving expert support from home
• Offline: a list of verified providers who offer in-person support in your area
• Hotlines: a list of counseling phone lines within Ukraine, and numbers abroad
• A guided test to help you choose where to start
• A free learning platform for professionals

The site also lays out the division of roles among ministries: the Ministry of Health, where the family doctor is the first point of contact; the Ministry of Social Policy, which runs local "resilience centres"; the Ministry of Education and Science, which teaches emotional skills in schools; and the State Emergency Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which has psychological staff on the police force and supports victims at the scene of events such as airstrikes.

Japan Is Not on the List of Numbers Abroad

The hotline page has a section for "numbers abroad," and as of September 2026, it lists toll-free numbers for 20 European countries, including Austria, Germany, Poland, and the United Kingdom. There is no Japanese number listed.

Public points of contact that people living in Japan can turn to are collected in our article on where to ask first when you start living in Japan. Some of these can be reached in Ukrainian. If there is a risk to life, call 119 (ambulance) in Japan.