Approbation of Emergency Education Strategies for Internally Displaced Ukrainian Children under the Martial Law Conditions

Abstract

The study aimed to test the first two stages of the simplified model of emergency education (elaborated by P. Aguilar, G. Retamal, and K. Triplehorn) under martial law conditions on the relatively safe territory of Ukraine. The study embraced 52 children from internally displaced families, 6 teachers, 3 practical psychologists and 12 pedagogical university students. Work with children was organised by students’ self-government members under the guidance of pedagogical teachers and professional psychologists. Based on the emergency education model, the authors developed a method of organising recreational therapy for internally displaced school-aged children evacuated from war zones. In order to assess the effectiveness of the organised activities, the «Test of differential self-assessment of functional state» was used to determine the level of children’s indices of well-feeling, activity and mood (WAM-questionnaire). The results of the surveys before and after the experiment showed that the developed method of organising the recreational therapy of internally displaced children contributed to significant positive changes in their emotional, psychological and functional state. The reported redistribution of indices clearly illustrates the significance of those changes.