This brief presents the case for engaging paraprofessional social service workers as part of a strengthened child protection and care system in Ukraine. The advocacy brief outlines how paraprofessionals—working under the supervision of qualified professionals—can help address workforce shortages, particularly in crisis-affected and resource-constrained contexts.

The paper provides an overview of Ukraine’s legal and policy framework related to child protection and care reform. The document reviews key national laws, strategies and regulations to assess their alignment with international child rights standards and the objectives of the reform to ensure that every child grows up in a family environment.

The Costing Model and Resource Requirements report presents a comprehensive financial analysis of Ukraine’s National Strategy to ensure every child grows up in a family environment. It estimates the resources required to implement the Strategy and its multi-year implementation plan across national, oblast and hromada levels, with a focus on strengthening families, expanding family-based care, reintegrating displaced children and transforming institutional care.

The report analyses existing parenting support policies, programmes and service models relevant to child protection and care reform. Drawing on international evidence and national sources, the review highlights the role of parenting support in preventing family separation, strengthening caregiving capacities and improving child well-being across the life course.

Youth Independent Living outlines the role of supported and supervised independent living as a key care option for adolescents and young people transitioning out of alternative care in Ukraine. Grounded in international legal frameworks and global evidence, the brief explains how independent living services support youth to safely transition to adulthood while prioritizing their best interests over institutional care.

This brief outlines why and how the voices of children, young people and caregivers with lived experience of the care system should be central to child protection and care reform in Ukraine. The brief clarifies key concepts and levels of participation, emphasizing that meaningful engagement goes beyond tokenism and must ensure influence, feedback and accountability.

This paper introduces the Collective Impact (CI) approach as a structured, equity-focused framework for advancing complex care reforms involving multiple actors. It explains how coordinated action across government, civil society, communities and non-traditional partners can move efforts from fragmented or isolated interventions toward shared goals, common metrics and sustained systems-level change.

This paper outlines the economic case for investing in family- and community-based care as a foundation for children’s well-being and long-term human capital development. Focusing on Ukraine, the paper highlights systemic underinvestment in social services and argues that rebalancing public spending toward an integrated “cash plus care” approach would generate significant economic and social returns.

The multiple and extensive transformations that have occurred in Eastern Europe since the 1990s did not bypass care, bringing diverse care regimes. This chapter, in the Research Handbook on Social Care Policy, aims to explore the main trends in the development of care policies in Croatia (a post-Yugoslav country) and the Czech Republic (a Visegrád country).

War negatively affects adults’ mental and physical health, which in turn impacts their parenting, exposing children to both direct and indirect stressors. This book examines these consequences, using evidence-based research and case studies from the Russian-Ukrainian war to highlight the importance of attachment, trauma-informed support, and interventions for families during and after conflict.