How is Europe welcoming Ukrainian refugee children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) services?

This commitment offered an important opportunity for young refugees to find a comforting place to play, learn, and grow with other children, and a crucial service for parents who needed childcare to be able to work. However, it proved challenging to organise.

To better understand the situation, UNICEF commissioned a situation analysis of ECEC services supporting Ukrainian refugees across EU member states, and published the first report in summer 2022.

The second synthesis report has just been released, and it presents the panorama of challenges to accessing quality education and care facing Ukrainian families and ECEC systems across Europe, as well as possible solutions to address these challenges.

It takes a look at the difficulty in adequately identifying demand from parents (who may move between countries), and ways to welcome children into ECEC systems that may have shortages in terms of staff and available places. It considers language and cultural issues, the use of online learning with very young children, and the importance of supporting ECEC staff working with refugee families, who may require specialist expertise to respond to their trauma.

This report complements the two recent UNICEF policy briefs:

• How to integrate Ukraine's refugee children through early childhood education and care
• What is needed to expand early childhood education and care for Ukraine's refugee children.