Child therapy service helps transform lives in Ukraine

In two months, little Andrii will turn three. In his short life, he has already experienced war, displacement, COVID-19, hospitalisation and a devastating separation from his father, resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and a desire to hide away from the world.

However, hope is on the horizon, thanks to an early childhood intervention service in Kharkiv, Ukraine, that is helping Andrii to recover and start communicating once again.

“The specialists are always here”

Early childhood intervention is a comprehensive service for families with young children who have or are at risk of developmental delays and disabilities. The service helps to provide care from birth to four years, and includes support for families in overcoming crises, developing vital skills in children and improving children’s interaction.

"This service is about life, as it helps to improve relationships in a family,” says Alina, one of the service’s speech therapists and early childhood intervention specialists, who has been helping Andrii to recover. “This service is about family."

Unlike conventional medical, social, or educational care, early childhood intervention is aimed not only at the child, but also at the entire family. 

"The service supports parents in their parenthood, in the rise and development of their child,” says Alina. “It explains how to play with a child, how to feed them, how to teach them to use the potty and how to communicate. It improves the skills of parents."

Concerned parents in Kharkiv can apply for help from the city’s Institute of Early Childhood Intervention, where Alina works, if a diagnosis has been made – such as early childhood autism, cerebral palsy, or a speech delay. They can also apply if they have noticed their child struggling with communicating, eating, walking, or with hygiene. 

Specialists here work with every family separately, selecting a format and schedule that are comfortable for the child. A team is formed according to the child's needs. The team may include a doctor, physical therapist, psychologist, speech therapist, and social worker.

"The specialists are always here, they are always in touch,” explains Alina. “They help parents understand what's going on with their children, so that they do not despair or search for information on the internet.”

“He closed himself off from strangers”

Together with Andrii’s mother Nataliia, Alina and her team of specialists have chosen a mixed format of meetings to work on his PTSD. Sometimes they work online and sometimes the family visits the institute. But usually Alina visits Andrii at home where he feels safe.

For a long time, the young boy did not feel safe anywhere – when the war broke out in February 2022, he and his family were forced to move house four times to find a safer place. He would hide his face and cry if they met a stranger. Then he caught COVID-19.

"We were stuck in hospitals, with constant injections, tests, travelling,” says Nataliia. “He had a bad experience with his peers. All of this overloaded him mentally. Andrii began to regress developmentally – he closed himself off from strangers, both from children and adults, and did not make contact with anyone at all, did not perceive the world around him.”

Despite Nataliia’s worries, it was difficult to get a diagnosis during the chaos of war.

"I needed a recommendation from a specialist,” she says. “I wanted experts to refute difficult diagnoses. Or confirm them, and then I would know what to do. The hardest thing during the war is when your child is sick and you are in a foreign city looking for doctors and can't find the right one.”

In Kharkiv, Nataliia turned to a neurologist, who recommended a free early childhood intervention service.

"At first, even eye contact with me could make him cry,” says Alina. “But, step by step, he got used to me and began to communicate.”

"These meetings help us a lot,” says Nataliia. “We learned that Andrii has PTSD, and now we know how to work with it. Alina showed us a lot of exercises to develop speech and communication. He likes to draw, so we use paints and brushes for that.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates that around 1.5 million Ukrainian boys and girls are at risk of developing depression, anxiety or other mental health issues that can have long-term consequences for their physical and mental health. The ongoing full-scale war continues to affect children in Ukraine, worsening their psychological state every day.

"The war affects the emotional state of a child, their development and behaviour,” says Alina. “Now more than ever, it is important for a specialist to be with parents and help them survive difficult situations and cope with them quickly.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and its partners work on providing access to early childhood intervention services for Ukrainian families. This includes ensuring complex support for early childhood intervention specialists, such as their training, the exchange of experiences and the work of comprehensive fully-equipped rehabilitation centres. The project is implemented with the financial support of the German Government's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) through the KfW Development Bank.