The event was organized by the network of centers for mental health of military personnel, veterans, and their families RETURNING.

Within the section "Adaptive sports as a tool for mental recovery," there was a panel discussion titled "Case project of the Ukrainian Football Association 'League of Strong': amputee football as a tool for veterans' mental recovery."

During the discussion, participants shared their experience of how sports and amputee football help veterans and veteran women return to active life, restore their mental state, find support from a team, and discover new sporting motivation after injuries and wartime experiences.

Participants in the panel included: director for strategic development and sustainability of the Ukrainian Football Association Olena Balbek, manager of the social project "League of Strong" Bohdan Melnyk, coach of the women's national team and "Shakhtar Stalevi" Bogdan Bilko, veteran of DPSU (Department of Public Security of Ukraine), former military prisoner, player of the "Kolos-Burevoy" team Dmitro Vereskyun and his wife Iryna.

Background

RETURNING is a nationwide network of centers for mental health of military personnel, veterans, and their families. The project was founded by Ukrainian philanthropists Viktor and Olena Pinchuk. Today, the centers of the RETURNING network are already operating in Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Zhytomyr, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kyiv, Kropyvnytskyi, Lviv, Odessa, Poltava, Rivne, Ternopil, Uzhhorod, Khmelnytskyi, Chernihiv and Cherkasy.