The family’s journey begins when a loved one enters service and continues after their return to civilian life. You may need support most acutely during the period of service due to emotional strain, uncertainty, and changes in roles and everyday responsibilities. The state must understand this experience and build support and recognition systems accordingly.

1. Service also affects families. Support can begin even when the journey is just starting
From the moment your loved one decides to serve, your life begins to change. Public policy should therefore recognise that the service of one person affects everyone in the family: it transforms daily routines, roles, psychological well-being, plans, and opportunities. The experience of loved ones is not an auxiliary aspect of service but an independent life journey that requires respect and visibility.

2. Clear and understandable information during service and discharge
During the discharge of your loved one, you are in a state of waiting, may assist with collecting documents and completing procedures, and prepare for change — emotionally, physically, and financially. During this period, it is important that the state provide clear, understandable pathways, accessible information for each step, and support options.

3. Support in restoring relationships, roles, and internal resources
After the return, the journey does not end — on the contrary, a new stage begins that may last a year or longer. You may experience accumulated fatigue and tension, reconsider family roles, and rebuild emotional connection. At this time, access to psychological support, family counselling, and necessary health services is crucial. At the same time, during this period, you may no longer require a separate targeted policy and may rely instead on existing veteran support mechanisms and general public services. It is therefore important that healthcare, education, social protection systems, and local services take your journey into account and provide services with respect and understanding.

If your loved one has a disability resulting from service, you may take on many roles — coordinating treatment, executing documentation, managing everyday life, organising logistics, and maintaining engagement with various institutions. At the same time, long-term care, daily decision-making, and responsibility can affect the physical and emotional state of all family members. Therefore, public policy must recognise and take your needs into account in the same way as the needs of warriors.

1. Recognition of care work as important and meaningful
Caring for a veteran with a disability in a hospital, during rehabilitation, or at home during recovery often becomes a significant and demanding part of your life. It is important that the state recognise this work, treat it as socially significant, and provide appropriate state guarantees, e.g., financial support, recognition of work record, or flexible work or study arrangements. Your contribution must be visible, valued, and protected.

2. Regular and predictable support you can rely on
Care and follow-up require stability. It is important to have accessible and understandable forms of assistance, such as transportation to healthcare facilities, psychosocial support, and legal support when completing documentation. Support should not be ad hoc but consistent — support that genuinely eases everyday life.

3. Coordinated functioning of all institutions you engage with
Treatment, rehabilitation, and social services often involve multiple processes and multiple institutions. It is essential that they work in a coordinated manner, without contradictory requirements or repeated requests for the same documents. When the system functions coherently, it reduces the burden on the family and allows focusing on what matters most — your loved one’s health and recovery and your own well-being.

If your loved one has gone missing in action, you are going through an extremely difficult experience. From the moment contact is lost until the person’s fate is established, families often endure complex emotional states. At the same time, immediately after receiving the news, they are forced to deal with legal procedures, engage with various institutions, and independently search for information.
An effective support system must take your journey into account at all stages: notification, formalisation of status, information search, and living with uncertainty. It must also provide access to the necessary guarantees, reduce bureaucratic burden, and offer a clear, understandable course of action.

1. Recognition and visibility of the experience
When your loved one has gone missing in action, you may face a complex experience: the absence of verified information, the difficulty of making decisions, legal limitations, and prolonged waiting. Public policy must therefore see and recognise you as a distinct subject on an equal footing with other societal groups. Recognition must be both moral and institutional. Support must be provided with respect for privacy and dignity and must not shift the state’s responsibilities to the family. 

2. Continuity, long-term nature, and comprehensiveness
It is essential that assistance is provided at all stages: from the moment of notification of being missing in action, through the formalisation of status, during prolonged waiting, and until new information is obtained or the status changes. Support must not be one-off or situational. It must also be multidimensional, as your needs relate not only to searching for information about your loved one, but also to other areas of life, for example, health, housing, financial stability, and work. 

3. Coordination and follow-up
When a loved one goes missing, you may independently engage with many institutions in order to find at least some information about them. It is important that you are not left alone in this process. The state must establish a clear support pathway and designate a single body or follow-up mechanism to guide families of missing-in-action warriors through all stages.

The journey of families of prisoners of war and those released from captivity is often marked by uncertainty, a lack of clear procedures, and the need to independently seek information and engage with numerous institutions. For a long time, you may not have a confirmed status, access to support, or timely information about your loved one. After their return, you may face challenges related to rehabilitation and changes in everyday life. It is important that you are not left to coordinate these processes alone, and that public policy guarantees coherent, clear, and accessible support.

1. Recognition of your experience and needs
Your journey involves more than just waiting and feeling anxious. It is also an everyday responsibility, advocating for your loved one, making important choices, and keeping your family going even when things are uncertain. Policy must recognise you as a distinct subject with your own needs and journey. The state must acknowledge the specific nature of your experience and ensure continuous and comprehensive support and a system of solutions that influence the family’s well-being and resilience at all stages, from the moment of captivity to return and recovery.

2. Support during captivity as a period of the greatest strain
When your loved one is a prisoner of war, you often assume key responsibilities: engagement with state institutions and international organisations, legal matters, organisation of daily life, financial stability, and representation of the warrior’s interests. This is not passive waiting, but a complex and exhausting phase of struggle. Therefore, it is essential that you have timely, accessible, and predictable support throughout the entire period of captivity.

3. Clear coordination between institutions
The support system must be clearly organised. It is important that you are not required to search for information across different bodies, but that the state provides a coordinated follow-up mechanism at all stages.

4. Time for recovery after release
After your loved one’s return, it is important that you have the time and opportunity to support their recovery calmly, to recover yourself, and to adapt to new circumstances. Thus, flexible working arrangements and other forms of assistance must be available to you, so that you can focus on adaptation without the risk of losing your income or job.

The journey of families of fallen warriors brings together an extremely complex experience, in which the emotional trauma of losing a loved one is intertwined with the need to carry out specific legal and organisational actions. This journey is one of the most acute and vulnerable, as it combines deep personal trauma with prolonged administrative and social burden.  
Therefore, it is essential that the state provide support instruments that guarantee dignity, stability, and well-being. 

1. Comprehensive recognition of experience and needs
The experience of families of the fallen is not only about loss, it is also about responsibility, memory, dignity, and the continuation of life in a new reality. The state must acknowledge that families of the fallen are not only keepers of memory, but full subjects of policy, with their own needs across all dimensions of well-being: health, education, housing, work, and commemoration.  

2. Recognition of changes that have occurred in your life
After losing a loved one, you may need time and resources to rebuild everyday life. Policy must take into account that these changes encompass personal, social, and material dimensions. Adaptation is not about returning to a “normal life,” but about building a new one: under difficult circumstances, with new challenges, and with a need for dignified long-term support. This journey must guide a rethinking of the state’s role: its function is not limited to a one-off benefit or organising a burial, but includes creating a long-term system of support that recognises the value and significance of the family’s loss and its contribution to the common fight against the aggressor. 

3. Clear information about your rights and opportunities
Many families lack complete or accessible information about the guarantees and assistance to which they are entitled. Support must ensure the provision of clear information and follow-up in engagements with state institutions.

4. Long-term and coordinated assistance
You deserve more than one-time payments or assistance with a single request. You should also have steady, long-term support, such as legal, social, psychological, and educational assistance. Policy must support you both now and in the future.