Supporting Children During Wartime Conference

On 10 April 2026, Restart Foundation hosted an online conference bringing together educators, psychologists, and child wellbeing practitioners from across Ukraine — and beyond — to share evidence-based experience of the Safe Space programme in Kyiv kindergartens. Over three hours, nine speakers explored what it truly means to create a mentally safe environment for young children living through war.

Why This Conference Matters

Children in wartime need more than shelter

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukraine’s early childhood education system has faced challenges it was never designed to handle. Educators found themselves carrying children into shelters during air raid sirens, managing extreme anxiety in children who had never previously known fear, and supporting parents who were themselves overwhelmed. Questions multiplied faster than answers.

The Safe Space programme — originally developed by the Mental Health Centre at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA) — was designed precisely to address this gap: a structured, evidence-based approach to psychological support that works not just with children, but with the adults who surround them every day.

The Programme

Safe Space: from schools to kindergartens

The Safe Space programme has its roots in 2014, when conflict in eastern Ukraine first created a mass need for psychological recovery in educational settings. Commissioned by UNICEF and Ukraine’s Ministry of Education, NaUKMA developed a group-based intervention that could work quickly, at scale, without stigma — reaching entire classrooms of children simultaneously.

What distinguished the programme from the outset was its collaborative design process. As Serhiy Bogdanov, Head of the NaUKMA Mental Health Centre and co-author of the programme, explained at the conference: the team began not with theory, but with listening — conducting in-depth interviews with educators, children, and parents to understand their actual needs before designing any intervention.

Over a decade of iteration, the programme expanded from schools to early childhood settings, integrating new research on resilience factors specific to Ukrainian children: parental support, social connection, perseverance, optimism, and physical health. Longitudinal data showed results were sustained over years — children who participated continued to show stable emotional wellbeing long after the programme ended.

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Conference Programme

Nine voices, one shared commitment

The conference brought together nine speakers whose presentations covered the full arc of the Safe Space programme — from its origins and theoretical foundations to its real-world implementation in kindergartens across Kyiv.

Key Themes

What the conference revealed

Adults first. One of the most consistent themes across presentations was the centrality of adult wellbeing. Children cannot be emotionally regulated by adults who are themselves dysregulated. The Safe Space programme’s model of supervision — Oksana Zaleska’s “Circles of Care” — places structured support for educators and psychologists at the heart of the intervention, not as an afterthought.

The classroom as a safe container. Multiple speakers emphasised that safety for children is not primarily physical — it is relational. A group where children feel seen, heard, and accepted can function as a genuine buffer against the psychological impact of war. Svitlana Kosachova described how Safe Space practices transformed the entire atmosphere of a kindergarten group over time, with children beginning to listen to each other in ways they never had before.

Parents as partners, not recipients. Olena Tkachenko’s presentation on parent engagement challenged the traditional model of parents as passive recipients of professional advice. In the Safe Space programme, parents are actively involved as co-participants in creating a supportive environment — both at home and in partnership with the kindergarten.

Normalising fear. Ievgeniia Zavorotynska’s session — titled after a child’s direct question, “I’m scared a rocket will hit our house” — addressed the challenge of honest, age-appropriate conversations about war. Children need adults who can sit with difficult questions rather than deflecting or minimising them.

Participant Response

Voices from the conference

Get Involved

Join the Safe Space community

The Safe Space programme is actively expanding to new kindergartens in Kyiv and beyond. If you are an educator, psychologist, or institution leader interested in implementing the programme, or if you would like to train as a project intern or mentor, please visit the programme page.

All conference materials — including the recording above, the ERC (Emotion Regulation Checklist) in English and Ukrainian, and additional resources — are available via the Restart Foundation website and social channels.