Refugees from Ukraine

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:08 pm on 15 March 2022.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:08, 15 March 2022

I thank Sarah Murphy for that, Llywydd. I imagine that there are Members right around the Senedd who have taken part in local events and local vigils, spontaneously organised by faith groups and others in their own community. They are practical demonstrations of the generosity that we know is on display across our nation.

On the specific point as to how public services will be mobilised, in my earlier answer to Adam Price, Llywydd, I tried to explain how, working with local government, we hope to create a way in which people coming to Wales will receive an initial period of support and reorientation, where we can make sure that those public services are aligned to their needs, where they themselves can simply regroup for a short while. It's impossible to imagine, isn't it, really, what it must be like to find yourself transported across a continent, and finding yourself, no matter how welcoming the context will be, when only a few short weeks ago, you were living absolutely peaceful lives and couldn't imagine that this was about to happen to you. So, there's bound to be, isn't there, a need for a period in which, when people arrive here, they have a chance just to breathe in and think about what has happened to them, and think about people that they have left behind and so on. So, we are trying to create a way in which that can happen, and then, with an assessment of the needs that people have, to make sure that the services they need are aligned with them.

And in mental health, of course Sarah Murphy is absolutely right, Llywydd; people will come to Wales having witnessed unfathomable things that they never thought they would ever see. We have already begun to prepare for that. The experts who work in our health boards, working with asylum seekers and refugees, have already had translated into Ukrainian and Russian mental health information that people will need to help them with that initial stabilisation. We're publishing that information on the Traumatic Stress Wales website, and we're working with the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who have also themselves already published specific support materials to help people during that initial resettlement phase. We're working with our CALL mental health helpline to make sure that it has access to services in the languages that will be needed. And all of this is being done, as Members here will recognise, under the pressure of events and the pressure of time, but those things have already happened and there will be more that we will need and want to do to make sure that people who need the support of mental health services will have that as part of the offer that we will want to make to them when they arrive in Wales.