The first conference of hospital teachers shall happen!

Education for children in Ukrainian hospitals is now becoming a little more accessible and we are making effort to ensure that every child has the opportunity to learn, even while staying in the hospital ward. However, this process cannot be established without teachers.

We thought long and hard about the format of the meeting, but the quarantine ended up shaping our final decision. In order to share the experience of teachers working in hospitals and discuss urgent matters of education for children who have to spend some time receiving treatment, we are organizing an online conference of very caring people: the first all-Ukrainian conference of hospital teachers!
Hospitals need teachers, and children in wards need to go to school. How can this be made possible? How was it made to successfully work in the rest of the world? What is a hospital teacher like? Why study in a hospital, how to organize this process, and how to really enjoy your work? It’s time to talk about it out loud and at full capacity.
During the conference we will host a number of experts, including from Israel and Estonia, who will share their experiences and answer participant’s questions.

Nataliia Moseichuk, curator of the Superheroes School, the “Right to Education” project, and news presenter for 1+1 channel, is working with us to secure quality school education in all children hospitals in Ukraine. Nataliia’s experience in the Right to Education project, her determination and inspiration will help educators understand why every teacher in a hospital is not just a teacher, but also a friend, mentor, and psychologist for young patients. Learning is an important step towards recovery.

An expert from Estonia, Anastasiia Kozitsyna, will tell us why her country secured the rule to hold least 8 lessons a week for children in hospitals at the state level. There is also the so-called 360 system, which involves professionals in various fields that do everything to help a child stay healthy, grow, and develop in harmony, while taking into account natural abilities and predispositions.
The issue of access to high-quality inclusive education for children, in particular for those in treatment, is one of the priorities of the UNICEF Children’s Fund in Ukraine. UNICEF’s Head of Educational Programs Bohdan Yarema will tell us about new opportunities for the teachers to cooperate with the Fund and will provide tools that you will be able to use in your work. Do you remember the online course to train hospital teachers called “How to teach Superheroes”? We created it in close collaboration with the team of the educational studio EdEra. Here any person will be able to find a suitable course, expand their professional skills, and advise their students to take a specific training course. The founder of the educational platform Illia Filipov will tell us about all the possibilities it offers.
When the first Superheroes School became operational in the Okhmatdyt Hospital we saw the eyes of the kids glow from happiness after communicating with teachers. We then started thinking of how to make even more kids happy. That is how the social franchise and the guide to opening a Superheroes School in a hospital were born. The first city to open a Superheroes School was Zhytomyr. Mariia Misiurova, Deputy Mayor for Zhytomyr City Council Executive Bodies will tell us about the opening process of the Schools and how they are operating now.
Another international expert that will attend the conference is Olena Bohopolska. By virtue of cooperation with the Embassy of the State of Israel in Ukraine we were able to invite a Doctor of Philosophy, a musical therapist from the school in the Jerusalem Medical Center and a member of the state commission for special education.
When speaking of educational process in a hospital, we must also understand the point of view of doctors. General Director of Okhmatdyt Volodymyr Zhovnir will talk about the importance of learning during the treatment process.

A hospital is a place where a multidisciplinary approach should be applied to each patient. There must be a team of workers, including physicians, psychologists, social workers, teachers, and other specialists, who will provide maximum assistance to solve the patient’s problems. This is the goal that Okhmatdyt Hospital has already started working towards.
The first all-Ukrainian online conference of hospital teachers promises to be very eventful, so we are eagerly waiting for it to begin!