Ukraine

The aim of the project is to support our Ukrainian partners in the education sector during the current crisis and to sensitise them in dealing with traumatised children. 20 webinars (crisis intervention, psychological first aid and burnout prevention) have been offered so far for teachers, school psychologists and headmasters/headmistresses.

Moreover, a reference book on psychological support for refugees (Dr. Barbara Preitler – “An ihrer Seite sein” (“Being at their side”) has been translated. 9,000 copies have been printed and made available free of charge throughout Ukraine. Training videos and psychoeducational booklets are also available. Furthermore, seminars for Ukrainian school psychologists are offered on an ongoing basis and specific webinars on self-care and burn-out prevention are carried out for teachers.

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"Safe Space" was conceived as a response to the psychological consequences of the Russian war of aggression in the compulsory education sector. The project aims at helping teachers to learn how to deal with the new mental challenges in their professional context caused by the war. Moreover, they will acquire the skills to better support their pupils psychologically and emotionally. Finally, the programme ensures that teachers will be able to identify children with symptoms of particular psychological distress, integrate them into the class by means of group dynamics, design suicide prevention and organise open dialogues with children, parents and other teachers.

"Safe Space" is implemented in close cooperation with two Ukrainian partner institutions: the National University Kyiv Mohyla Academy and the State Service for Quality in Education. At first 40 school psychologists will be trained as multipliers of the "Safe Space Method". Subsequently they will train 5,000 teachers from all over Ukraine in this method. Most of the training will take place online, accompanied by two face-to-face training sessions in Ukraine.

The aim of the project is to provide quick and uncomplicated support for teachers in online teaching. Ten teachers and five mentors from the subjects of physics, biology, mathematics, Ukrainian and English will create a total of 200 online sample lessons for implementing the curriculum under the guidance of an expert in digitisation of education, using the most popular digital applications in Ukraine.

Two lecturers from the University of Graz and the University College of Teacher Education Styria provide Austrian expertise in the use of open educational resources and the use of artificial intelligence in teaching.

Following the training of our trainers 100 webinars (twenty per subject) will be organised and conducted for a target audience of meanwhile more than 1,000 subject teachers.

Building on previous projects, the OeAD Cooperation Office supports our long-term project partners (teacher training institutes in Ukraine in the field of leadership and management) in their work with headmasters/headmistresses also during the challenging time of war. Managers currently need flexible crisis management skills and at the same time they have to support their teams emotionally and motivate them.

Our objective is first and foremost to support the existing project team of 22 lecturers in leadership and management in dealing with the war at their institutions. In a further step elements and experiences from the interdisciplinary trainings are to be included in the professional development courses of the participating teacher training institutes. For this purpose two face-to-face meetings in Uzhhorod and three webinars will be offered.

School headmasters/headmistresses will thus benefit in the future from the measures taken, especially in the areas of crisis and personnel management, burnout prevention, decision-making, preparation for the transition phase after the war, development of healthy organisations, vision and strategy development, and change management in extreme situations.