“War and the prolonged displacement of children can be active threats to children’s futures. Coping with psychological stress and not losing educational momentum are top priorities for all of Ukraine.”
By Irwin Redlener, MD
After a tumultuous, long-delayed flight, we arrived in Warsaw at about 4:30 AM, picked up by our Ukraine team a few hours later for the car ride to Lviv. As is fairly typical, the ride took about 11 hours -including a 4.5-hour border crossing into Ukraine. Think about a separate truck line of at least 3 - 4 miles. Those truckers crossing that border station would take anywhere from 3 - 10 days! Oy...
The next morning Karen visited four shelters for Ukrainians displaced from eastern and southern regions of the country. Almost all of these families (mostly just with moms, as dads were almost all conscripted into the army) fled for their lives, literally as their home or apartment building was being bombarded by Russian forces. The psychological trauma was extensive and devastating for school-age kids and adolescents. That said, we spoke with Alexander, a 5-year-old boy from Donbas who told us that he and his mom escaped from "the enemy." His mother said they had stayed underground for two weeks, until their building took a direct hit, and they fled via a harrowing road trip to Lviv, leaving dad behind to help with humanitarian assistance. Many, many stories like this. But none as heartbreaking as the stories of children hospitalized with traumatic amputations, head injuries, and, in a few instances, seeing parents killed by missile strikes.
Hundreds of thousands of kids were settling in the Lviv region, all struggling. That said, they are getting lots of help from incredibly dedicated local officials and NGOs who are trying to identify shelter and school placement, as they're just weeks away from the September 1 school start date. To make matters even more complicated, officials anticipate severe heating oil shortages this winter, adding cold hardship to everything else.
We had many meetings in Lviv presenting a proposal entitled “Future Ready”, which entails ensuring that all displaced kids would be in a school where they would be screened and treated for "health barriers to learning" in classrooms prepared to deal with large numbers of psychologically traumatized children. We also have been told that money for textbooks for some elementary grades had been diverted for the war effort. And there was a serious shortage of laptops or tablets for displaced kids to be able to study online.
Other particularly instructive meetings included a great session with about 100 teachers and school psychologists where we presented and had a very productive interactive session. And on our last day in Lviv, I presented to a number of pediatricians, primary care providers, and mental health professionals about the urgent needs of Ukrainian children.
There is a lot of work to do to provide urgent mental health and educational support to Ukrainian children who are either refugees in Poland, or internally displaced in their own country - all fleeing a humanitarian crisis and brutal war. I urge you to please continue to follow the news, and if you can, please donate to this cause.
