Children in Ukraine continue to live under the weight of war, facing continual disruption and distress. Many have experienced trauma and displacement, and air-raid sirens ring out often, prompting fear and the need to take shelter. Rates of anxiety and depression have surged, and there is an urgent need for mental health support for Ukrainian children. With very few trained professionals available, researchers are turning to digital tools that can reach large groups of young people. One such attempt tested whether a self-guided program called Project Calm could help students in Ukraine learn simple techniques to manage challenging emotions.
The study was carried out by Joshua Steinberg, Jingxuan Sun, Katherine Venturo-Conerly, Gauri Sood, Dr. Patrick Mair, Ms. Oksana Davydenko, Professor Robert Porzak, Professor Dennis Ougrin, and Professor John Weisz, with Harvard University as the lead institution. Their findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal npj Mental Health Research, which is a scientific outlet dedicated to mental health studies.
Project Calm is a short online activity designed to teach young people calming strategies such as paced breathing, imagining peaceful places, and tensing and relaxing different muscles, a practice often called progressive muscle relaxation. It was translated into Ukrainian and introduced in schools located in a region of Ukraine that is frequently targeted by missile and drone attacks. Hundreds of students, from primary school through secondary school, took part in the study, which compared the program with a control group that focused on practicing school assignments.
The findings were mixed. Students generally reported that Project Calm was acceptable and useful but when researchers looked at changes in symptoms of anxiety, depression, and trauma, the results did not show significant differences between the Project Calm group and the control group. Among the subgroup of students who already showed the strongest signs of distress before starting the intervention, those in the control group actually reported bigger reductions in symptoms than those using Project Calm. As Steinberg explained, “Given that we found no evidence that calming skills taught via DMHI are effective for Ukrainian youth, we suggest that researchers test other strategies delivered by DMHI and that calming skills continue to be taught in provider-guided formats.” Here DMHI refers to digital mental health interventions, tools delivered through computers, tablets, or phones to support mental health.
Teachers and school staff noted that outside circumstances may have influenced these results. Students often had to stop the program when air raid sirens sounded, forcing them to leave for shelters and later restart the session. Staff also pointed out that focusing only on calming strategies might have interfered with coping methods that children were already using to get through ongoing war-related stress. Coping methods are the natural ways children find to handle fear and uncertainty in their daily lives.
Steinberg and colleagues still see value in what the project revealed. Running a large, carefully designed study in schools during wartime proved possible, and children were willing to take part in digital programs. Steinberg emphasized that this experience could guide future projects more closely fitted to the realities young people in Ukraine face. “The most straightforward interpretation of the full-sample, between-groups, null effect is that the intensity and chronicity of stress that Ukrainian children have endured since Russia’s invasion may be too severe to be ameliorated through such a brief DMHI teaching only one skill,” he explained. Null effect here simply means no meaningful difference was found between the treatment and control groups.
Steinberg and his team are now suggesting that digital programs might be more effective for this population if they leverage a broader range of techniques, such as strategies from Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy—an evidence-based approach for treating symptoms of trauma—or if DMHIs are supplemented with some support from a trusted adult. They also recommend building on coping strategies that Ukrainian youth are already using so that new interventions strengthen rather than replace what is already working.
These outcomes highlight both the potential and the limits of digital mental health programs in acutely stressful contexts. While such tools are accessible and often welcomed by children, their impact depends heavily on the how well the content is matched to local and individual needs.
Journal Reference
Steinberg J.S., Sun J., Venturo-Conerly K.E., Sood G., Mair P., Davydenko O., Porzak R., Ougrin D., Weisz J.R. “Randomized trial testing a self-guided digital mental health intervention teaching calming skills for Ukrainian children.” npj Mental Health Research, 2025; 4:20. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44184-025-00134-w
About the Author
Joshua S. Steinberg, M.A. is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at Harvard University working under the mentorship of Professor John R. Weisz. Originally from the Greater Boston Area, Josh graduated Summa Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania in 2022 with a B.A. in Psychology prior to joining the Lab for Youth Mental Health.
Josh’s research, supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, focuses on designing and evaluating scalable interventions to improve mental health outcomes for youth, particularly those targeting internalizing disorders such as anxiety and depression. He is especially interested in how technology—such as light-touch digital programs and AI-powered tools—can be used to increase access to evidence-based care and supplement usual clinical care by providing opportunities to practice therapy skills in between face-to-face sessions.
