Trauma-informed care for Ukrainian schools: preliminary results and continuation of work
After the expert workshop in September a group of Ukrainian experts has been working on designing a program for seminars on trauma-informed care for Ukrainian schools.
The result – an extremely high-quality 63 pages programme with more than 60 practical exercises to help teachers in their work with traumatized children – was tested during a focus group with teachers from Kyiv Business Lyceum.
We are quoting some of the answers as they speak for themselves:
- What are the most problematic, difficult areas of your work now?
- organization of work under conditions of air alerts, possible shutdowns, constant stress due to war (38%)
- maintaining the students’ balanced and active psycho-emotional state (31%)
- interaction with parents (19%)
- interaction with students (13%)
2. What are you most suffering from?
- exhausted inner resources
- difficulty to quickly restore one’s own resource after lessons in a shelter
- students are not motivated to learn and carry out tasks formally
- difficulty balancing your own psycho-emotional state and that of your class in a working mode
3. What topics and exercises from the program do you assess as most necessary and practical?
- teacher’s inner resource and ways to restore it – 81%
- protection from burnout – 56%
- stress and how to deal with it – 50%
- needs of the children and the connection of their needs to their conduct – 38%
- emotions and trauma, emotional regulation – 38%
The program is accompanied by Powerpoint presentations, a portable methodology instrument “Teacher’s resource assistant”, and a colorful poster, that is not only a project image, but also a methodology instrument in itself.
German Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt) will continue to support the project till the end of 2024. We are planning to organize 5 trainings for teachers from Ukraine and support the schools after the trainings. It means that more than 150 teachers and hopefully even more children in Ukraine will benefit from knowledge of trauma-informed care. We are very grateful to Auswärtiges Amt for continued support!
