“Smart Osvita” NGO, in partnership with Americares., Foundation, Inc., is implementing a comprehensive program to support mental health in the education cluster.
Almost 13 thousand schools with 3,9 million students and 388 thousand teachers operate in Ukraine today. Most schools work onsite. Frequent air raid alerts, adaptation of temporarily displaced students from frontline areas, and increased workload – these are the conditions in which Ukrainian pedagogues constantly have to work.
A large-scale survey of the emotional well-being of school psychologists and teachers in Ukraine was launched within the Programme “Psychological Support of Educators” in February 2024. The survey results will not only shed light on the current condition of Ukrainian educators. Still, they will also help to determine whether they are prepared to provide efficient psychological support to students and their parents during martial law and will better manage how they can acquire these skills. The survey will cover all regions of Ukraine and will be conducted with the support of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine.
“None of us had prepared for the war or to work in such difficult, stressful conditions. But we must persevere; we must have the resilience and the skills to care not only about ourselves but also our mental health. Our children also need support and help. And very often, both parents and teachers are unaware of how to detect mental health issues in school children, how to provide help, and how to make sure you do not harm. That is why we are not just investigating the emotional and mental condition of educators. Whether they are prepared to provide help, we have also developed a special program for school psychologists and teachers so that they can detect the children’s needs and work with them, support them, and adequately refer the children to the respective specialists if needed,” said Oksana Makarenko, co-founder and head of the psychological sector in “Smart Osvita.”
The project implemented by Americares Foundation, Inc. and “Smart Osvita” is designed as follows: two representative groups have been formed from the school psychologists and teachers who agreed to be engaged. The first group was offered remote training, while the second group was a control group. All the participants will be surveyed in three waves, which will determine not only the general picture of the psychological and emotional condition of the educators and its change over time but will also allow us to assess the importance of the training and will enable us to improve it for further scaling up.
The school psychologists are the first to be trained. “Smart Osvita,” in partnership with Americares Foundation, Inc., has designed a modular online training based on the UTPH, adapting all the materials specifically for education. Its authors are Ivan Franko State University of Zhytomy scholars Nataliya Portnytska, Iryna Tychyna, Olha Savychenko, and famous Ukrainian children’s family psychologist Svitlana Roiz.
The trained psychologists will become trainers for the teachers in their schools. This practical training component is mandatory for them to receive a certificate. To reach more teachers, the project team has developed unique materials to help the trainers conduct a remote course – presentations to each of the seven modules, video clips, course textbooks, and an extensive list of additional reference materials from various sources. All the materials are evidence-based, piloted in the summer of 2023, upgraded, and uploaded on Resilience Help‘s digital platform.
Overall, at this stage of the Programme supported by the Americares Foundation, Inc., we plan to train at least 60 school psychologists and 720 teachers.
In parallel with the training, “Smart Osvita” is researching with a team of scholars from Zhytomyr University. By comparing the psycho-emotional condition of the educators and their preparedness to provide psychosocial support to all participants of the educational process in the groups that have been trained and in the control groups (who have not been trained), we will conduct an in-depth analysis that will become the foundation for a research article. The authors plan to publish it in one of the international academic journals this year.
The Associated Professor of Illinois University, Dr. Tara Powell, supervised the paper.
«This research examines and assesses how the war has affected the mental and emotional health of Ukrainians. The goal is to identify their mental health support needs and determine the most effective resources and methods to aid in their well-being. We are confident that publishing our findings in a well-respected, internationally peer-reviewed journal will bring global attention to the issues faced by those in the country experiencing ongoing conflict», – Dr. Tara Powell, associate professor at the University of Illinois.
The results of the research will be presented to the educational community. They will be considered during the development of legal regulations that guide the resettlement of the system of psychological support for secondary education in conditions of Russian aggression.
There is a reason why Americares Foundation, Inc. is collaborating with “Smart Osvita” in this project. Our organization has been working for many years in the sphere of educational reforms in Ukraine, and we have the trust of stakeholders; we are actively working with state institutions and developing a digital platform called Resilience Help.
«Americares has been responding to the health needs caused by the war in Ukraine for more than two years, including supporting programs that promote resiliency. This project is one of the largest mental health and psychosocial support initiatives we have supported in Ukraine, and we are glad that we are able to partner with Smart Osvita to have such widespread reach and impact. The results of the project will inform how we continue to support the people in Ukraine, as well as future humanitarian response operations», – said Rebecca Carney, Americares senior mental health and psychosocial support and protection program manager, for its Ukraine Response.
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