Last month, the Ministry of Interior and Administration of Poland (MSWIA) hosted KIND for a three-day conference, “Journeys to Safety: Multidisciplinary, Interagency Pathways for Protecting Children from Ukraine,” in Warsaw. The event, funded by the Howard G Buffett Foundation and the Norway Grants Programme, brought together experts from a range of disciplines to learn from each other and discuss how to best provide vital care, support, and protection to children displaced from Ukraine. The goal of the conference was to enhance the skills and knowledge of stakeholders and train them on how to prevent and address trafficking of children displaced from Ukraine through multidisciplinary, interagency pathways.
The conference is part of KIND’s Suzir’ya Project, which is funded by the Howard G Buffett Foundation and strives to provides essential protection, support, and access to justice for children displaced from Ukraine in Europe. Suzir-ya is Ukrainian for constellation and embodies the project’s aim of fostering national and transnational cooperation and partnerships across sectors and agencies and embracing innovative solutions.
Conference attendees included KIND partners the Rule of Law Institute Foundation and ELIL Poland; experts from international, national nongovernmental, and civil society organizations; law enforcement; members of the Polish government; and the Polish Border Guard Service.
Children Displaced from Ukraine at Grave Risk
Children displaced from Ukraine suffer deeply from the consequences of the full-scale invasion of their country and the loss of all that is familiar. Unaccompanied children are particularly vulnerable and at a higher risk of being trafficked and exploited. As discussed throughout the conference, the international community can and must play a vital role in strengthening measures to protect children from abuse, exploitation and trafficking.
The chief of the Ukrainian government’s war crimes prosecution department raised awareness of the crimes being committed against children in Ukraine. Another presenter explained the Mendez Principles for effective investigations and information gathering and how they can be applied to working with children who may have experienced violations of their human rights, including exploitation. The presenter shared the example of a collaboration between Stanford University and a United Nations investigative team (UNITAD) to create trauma-informed mechanisms to respond to children impacted by conflict and document violations of their rights.
Trauma-informed care
The trauma that children displaced from Ukraine face can significantly impact their psychological, social, and educational development. Experts provided training on the trauma that children can experience both in their country of origin and the country where they begin their life as a refugee, and trauma’s impact on the brain and a child’s developmental memory. Attendees learned how organizations in Poland are using trauma-informed, child-centred principles to support child survivors of trauma.
Another session focused on the National Institute for Child and Human Development (NICHD) child interviewing protocol and the importance of working in an age-appropriate and child-centred way, building trust and rapport, and having an interpreter who can speak the child’s first language. The Global Initiative for Truth, Justice and Reconciliation discussed the need for holistic services, survivor-child-centred truth telling, acknowledgement, and justice.
Strengthening Child Protection Systems
Conference participants gained a better understanding of the key actors in the Polish child protection system and the pathways to better collaborate to best support child survivors of trafficking and other abuse through an interdisciplinary, multi-agency approach. KIND is proud to be part of this effort through its partner and staff team in Poland.
Building from these trainings, KIND plans to host a series of workshops in the region designed to strengthen child protection systems and foster a better understanding of the complex legal frameworks meant to protect children. KIND, with the support of MSWIA and the Norway Grant Programme, rolled out such trainings in Lublin and Rzeszow in Poland last month providing training to border guards, law enforcement, and child protection actors working with children displaced from Ukraine.
Spread the Word, Support KIND
As part of the Suzir’ya project, KIND is providing child-centred and trauma informed legal and psychosocial assistance to children displaced from Ukraine. You can find out more about working with our team in Poland by contacting us at PolandEU@supportkind.org.
From working with KIND on this project, it is clear that KIND fuses direct legal assistance to unaccompanied children with deep kindness for children. KIND’s unique multidisciplinary, interagency, child-centred, and trauma-informed approach is essential now more than ever in Europe.
Learn more about KIND’s Suzir’ya Project here and KIND’s work in in Poland here.
