INCLUSIVE CHILD RECOVERY

Concept Status

Concept — Seeking Partners

Funding Status

seeking_partners

Why this matters

Children with disabilities and developmental support needs face amplified risks when displacement, damaged services, caregiver strain, interrupted rehabilitation and inaccessible education occur together. Status-based fragmented assistance can fail to reflect individual needs and family circumstances.

The research will also examine patterns of childhood morbidity and disease progression, including childhood cancer, in relation to access to diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation. A separate component will address the needs of children with autism spectrum disorder, early developmental support, inclusive education and support for families. The project will study legal and organisational barriers, interruptions to care, and opportunities for national and cross-border support.

Why this matters now

Children with disabilities and war-affected children can face overlapping barriers across rehabilitation, health care, assistive technology, inclusive education, social services and caregiver support. Recovery programmes that treat each service separately risk increasing family burden and leaving the most complex needs least coordinated.

Recovery planning requires coherent evidence on childhood morbidity, timely diagnosis, continuity of treatment and unmet developmental support needs. Legal frameworks and support programmes should help families access services in Ukraine and abroad and address delays in care, discrimination, bullying and social exclusion.

Primary objective

Develop, pilot and evaluate an integrated disability-inclusive recovery pathway that connects early intervention, rehabilitation, health, assistive technologies, inclusive education, social support and caregiver navigation for children affected by war.

Strengthen this pathway through research on childhood morbidity and cancer care, support for children with autism spectrum disorder, legal frameworks, preventive measures and national and cross-border programmes supporting children and families.

Specific objectives

• Measure service gaps, waiting times, referral breaks and caregiver burden for children with disabilities and complex support needs.
• Co-design a multidisciplinary child-and-family pathway linking rehabilitation, health, education, social support and assistive technologies.
• Pilot the pathway in one or more regions, including a Kharkiv-region component where security and partners make this feasible.
• Generate financing, service-design and policy recommendations that can be replicated across public and community-based systems.
• Study patterns of childhood morbidity and the course of childhood cancer with relevant specialists, assessing access to diagnosis and continuity of treatment and rehabilitation.
• Examine the needs of children with autism spectrum disorder and their families, including access to developmental assessment, early support, inclusive education and community services.
• Compare legal frameworks and national and cross-border support programmes, including funding, referrals, recognition of documents and continuity of care after displacement.
• Develop and evaluate measures addressing delayed diagnosis and interrupted care, promoting health, and preventing discrimination, bullying and social exclusion.

Methodology

• Disability-inclusive needs assessment combining service data, caregiver research and specialist clinical/rehabilitation input.
• Service and financing mapping across health, social protection, inclusive education and assistive-technology pathways.
• Participatory co-design with disability organisations, families and qualified multidisciplinary professionals.
• Implementation research in pilot sites using access, waiting-time, continuity, participation and caregiver-burden indicators.
• Equity, accessibility, safeguarding and reasonable-accommodation review across all research and implementation materials.
• Analyse de-identified health and administrative data and child-health research with epidemiologists, paediatricians and paediatric oncologists, distinguishing changes in morbidity, case detection and access to care.
• Study the experiences of children with autism spectrum disorder and their families with developmental specialists, psychologists and representative organisations.
• Conduct comparative legal analysis of national and cross-border programmes and evaluate support pathways for timeliness, continuity, accessibility and family experience.

Core Research Question

How can local and national systems move from status-based fragmented assistance toward coordinated, needs-based, family-centred support during war and recovery?

Proposed Work Packages

• Needs assessment
• Service and financing mapping
• Early intervention and rehabilitation pathway
• Caregiver support
• Inclusive education interface
• Assistive-technology access
• Inter-agency data and coordination model
• Kharkiv-region pilot/case study where feasible and safe
• Childhood morbidity, cancer care and continuity of treatment
• Support for children with autism spectrum disorder and their families
• Legal frameworks, preventive measures and national and cross-border support

Geography

Ukraine, with a possible Kharkiv-region pilot/case study where feasible and safe

Target Groups

• Children with disabilities
• War-affected children with rehabilitation needs
• Caregivers and families
• Education, health and social-service providers
• Children with cancer and their families
• Children with autism spectrum disorder and their families

Expected Outputs

• Service-gap map
• Needs-assessment framework
• Integrated referral protocol
• Financing and policy recommendations
• Pilot implementation guide
• Caregiver resource package
• Research review of childhood morbidity, cancer care and gaps in developmental support
• Comparative map of legal mechanisms and national and cross-border support programmes
• Recommendations on timely care, prevention of adverse outcomes and inclusion

Intended Outcomes

• More coordinated needs-based support
• Better continuity of rehabilitation and inclusive education
• Reduced caregiver navigation burden
• Better coordination of medical, psychological, educational and legal support
• Fewer barriers to national and cross-border assistance

Proposed Indicators

• Waiting time for rehabilitation
• Service continuity after displacement
• Early-intervention access
• Inclusive-education participation
• Caregiver burden and satisfaction
• Assistive-device access
• Time from seeking help to accessing specialist care
• Interruptions to treatment or support after displacement
• Service accessibility for children with autism spectrum disorder
• Time needed to arrange support and repeated requests for documents

Partners Sought

• Rehabilitation centres and universities
• Health and social-policy institutions
• Disability organisations
• Foundations and international actors focused on disability, rehabilitation and child development
• Paediatric oncology centres and public-health institutions
• Autism and family support organisations
• Institutions and networks coordinating cross-border assistance for children

External Expertise Sought

• Rehabilitation medicine
• Paediatrics
• Disability studies
• Inclusive education
• Social work
• Health economics
• Paediatric oncology and epidemiology
• Developmental psychology and support for children with autism spectrum disorder
• Health law, social entitlements and cross-border coordination of care

Relevant SDGs

3, 4, 10, 16, 17

Implementation architecture

Recommended duration: 36 months

• 12 months: A 12-month foundation phase would complete a disability-inclusive needs and service-gap assessment, map financing and referral pathways, and co-design an integrated early-intervention and rehabilitation model with families and specialist partners.
• 24 months: A 24-month standard implementation would pilot the integrated pathway, train multidisciplinary teams, strengthen caregiver navigation and inclusive education interfaces, and evaluate access, continuity and user burden.
• 36 months: A 36-month scale scenario would add multiple regional pilots, comparative implementation research, assistive-technology access models and policy/financing packages designed for replication by public and non-governmental systems.

Beneficiaries

Primary beneficiaries

Children with disabilities and complex support needs affected by war, displacement or disrupted services.
War-affected children requiring rehabilitation, early intervention, assistive technology or coordinated health/social support.
Parents and caregivers carrying a high navigation and care burden across fragmented systems.

Secondary beneficiaries

Rehabilitation, health, education and social-service providers seeking more coordinated pathways.
Municipal and national policy actors responsible for financing, disability inclusion and child-development systems.

Consortium profile

The consortium requires genuine multidisciplinary authority: TNESC can contribute legal, governance, public-policy and research coordination, while medical, rehabilitation, disability, social-work, education and health-economics competences must be held by qualified partner institutions.

Required consortium roles

Research/governance coordinator with legal and public-policy competence.
Rehabilitation medicine and paediatric institutions with clinical governance.
Disability organisations and lived-experience representatives.
Inclusive education and early-intervention specialists.
Municipal/social-service implementation partners and caregiver support organisations.
Health-economics, monitoring/evaluation and accessibility expertise.

Budget logic

Main cost drivers

Multidisciplinary specialist time and clinical/rehabilitation governance.
Accessible field research, reasonable accommodations and caregiver participation support.
Pilot service coordination, referral and case-navigation costs.
Training and multidisciplinary team development.
Assistive-technology assessment or access components where eligible.
Monitoring, health-economic analysis, accessibility audit and independent safeguarding.

The 12-month option is assessment-and-design led; 24 months supports a full pilot pathway and team training; 36 months can support multiple regional pilots, comparative implementation research and replication packages, with assistive-technology and service-delivery components driving the largest cost growth.

Risks & safeguards

Funding alignment

Funding-framework references indicate thematic fit only. They do not imply eligibility, funding, partnership or endorsement.

• UNICEF Ukraine — Invest now for every child, for Ukraine’s recovery (2026)

  The integrated disability, family-support, education and service-system approach fits UNICEF’s recovery framing that places children, inclusion and locally led systems strengthening at the centre of long-term recovery.

• European Commission — Ukraine Facility / Better Care child-protection reform support (2026)

  The project’s family-based, disability-inclusive and inter-agency design is thematically compatible with EU support for Better Care and social dimensions of recovery; this records strategic fit only, not eligibility or an existing relationship.

Evidence Sources

• UNICEF Ukraine / Ministry of Social Policy — State Social Support for Persons and Children with Disabilities in Ukraine

Evidence sources are cited for context and do not imply partnership or endorsement.