Melon Fashion Group, owner and operator of ZARINA, befree and LOVE REPUBLIC retail chains jointly with the Support Center for victims of the fire in the Zimnyaya Vishnya shopping center created the center of psychological support. The famous psychotherapist and international expert in work with traumas and human losses Alexander Gershanov was invited to Kemerovo to train psychologists specializing in post-traumatic stress and grief disorders.

The training took the shape of seminars and lectures for psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers on the following topics: “First aid to harsh reactions to traumatic event”, “Revealing and defining burn-out and secondary trauma symptoms”, “Desensitization methods”, “Work with losses and grievance”, “systematic approach to work with families that have experienced traumas” and other. Twenty eight people have been trained to work with those who have lost their close relatives. The newly-trained specialists will be able now to help families of the fire tragedy.

Healing post-traumatic stress disorders is a long-term process, rehabilitation will take a lot of time. This is the reason for organization of the support center – those who have suffered from the tragedy and relatives of the deceased will receive qualified help from the trained professionals. It is noteworthy that such help will be provided free of charge until full recovery of people who apply there.

Olesya Emelianova, psychologist, curator of the center: “After the tragedy in the shopping center we realized that we lack knowledge how to support people with post-traumatic stress disorders. We needed badly qualified training and tools of support. We have united our efforts with Melon Fashion Group and Alexander Gershanov and managed to create a center where 28 professionals will be able to provide psychological help to traumatized families.”

Alexander Gershanov:”Psychologists and psychiatrists, social workers have taken an intensive course filled with essential theoretical and practical knowledge of how to work with trauma. Now they have adequate skills to provide psychological help to aggrieved people.”

Tatiana Bredikhina, befree director:”Realizing that it will take a long time for people to recover from the tragedy, we have joined Kemerovo volunteers and contributed to the project of the Support center which will provide free psychological help to traumatized people. We are grateful to Alexander Gershanov for sharing his experience and knowledge and to local people and organizations that helped make such necessary training happen.”