Online training for public school teachers

ISSA Member: Step by Step Educational Program, Moldova

What happened?
Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, over half a million refugees have passed through Moldova, many staying in the country. In response, Step by Step Moldova (SbSM) launched Day Camps in Chișinău, offering non-formal, flexible educational and psychosocial support to Ukrainian refugee children and families.

 
What was needed? How did they respond?
Many children were not registered in the formal system due to language barriers or hopes to return home. Schools lacked space and resources. SbSM stepped in with accessible Day Camps, non-formal programs hosted at the National Puppet Theatre, delivering inclusive recreational, learning, and emotional support in trusted, creative environments.

Key challenges:

• Refugee children unregistered due to procedural or language challenges.
• Schools unable to integrate all arriving children.
• Mapping and outreach to refugee families proved difficult.
• ECEC staff lack competencies to support emotionally trauma-affected children.

Solutions:

• SbSM identified beneficiaries using social media groups and refugee centres.
• Day Camps offered puppet shows, developmental workshops, thematic field trips, snacks, and psychosocial support.
• Families felt welcomed and engaged.
• ECEC staff acquired the competencies needed to support children and families’ well-being.

SbSM partnered with the National Puppet Theatre, UNICEF, and NRC, World Vision International, Amna (UK) expanding non-formal offerings and reaching more children and families. The welcoming environment, flexible structure, and bilingual Ukrainian educators helped families feel included and supported.

SbSM drew on ISSA-designed resources, specifically the Foundational Training on Psychological First Aid (PFA) and trauma-informed practices, to equip their educators with trauma-informed competencies. This training equipped teachers to better support refugee children’s emotional needs.

What's in place? What's missing?
Step by Step Moldova’s use of psychological first aid and trauma-informed training empowered educators to respond compassionately to refugee children's emotional needs. Yet, the absence of an integrated, state-led professional development framework for crisis settings means that such capacity depends on civil society engagement. Embedding staff training into national preparedness systems is essential for scalable, consistent, and responsive early childhood support in future crises.

Being part of a regional network: Advantages of ISSA membership

Step by Step Moldova (SbSM) as an ISSA member developed a systemic approach to change in ECD, which turned to be very important, including in times of national education reform initiatives, when SBSM contributed to new ECD policy documents focused on child-centeredness. Still, most importantly, SbSM continuously supported through various projects the translation of the educational policy discourse into practice. Thus, in the last five years SBSM got accreditation from the National Quality in Education Association for its 20-credits program Translating Child-Centered Education Into Practice¸ which has at its core the ISSA QRP, the experience of developing authentic videos for focused critical discussions and mentoring.

Recommendations
Still, at the system level there is still a considerable gap between the formal discourse of change and the classroom practice. This makes it even more important to invest into relevant workforce capacity building, since formal trainings are not very efficient in this sense. As SbSM/ISSA experience has shown, practice oriented, reflection-building and experience sharing training sessions and mentoring have really a transformative potential. Donors’ investment in such workforce capacity development is more likely to produce qualitative rather than discursive change in the education system.

National policymakers:

• Develop official training standards and national curricula for ECD and school staff on child-centered trauma-informed care in emergencies.
• Ensure early activation of training programs during arrivals—partnering with NGOs to deliver training before or alongside government guidelines.
• Mandate continuous professional development pathways for educators in emergency contexts, including mandatory psychological first aid (PFA) modules and multilingual inclusion practices.

Local/national actors

• Host context-tailored staff training workshops and webinars addressing crisis-related pedagogies, trauma-informed practices, inclusion, and language-sensitive teaching.
• Build cross-institutional peer learning teams where educators can share strategies, challenges, and successful practices.
• Integrate follow-up coaching or reflective practice sessions post-training, so staff can adapt lessons learned to their classroom contexts.

Private donors

• Provide flexible funding specifically earmarked for educator training in crisis-sensitive ECD—covering both online modules and in-person coaching.
• Support translation and localization of training materials to ensure accessibility in teachers’ native and children’s home languages.
• Invest in the development and evaluation of modular training curricula, including PFA, trauma-informed engagement, social cohesion, and bilingual classroom strategies.

Professionals/practitioners

• Enroll in online/in-person training: such as ISSA-War Child PFA modules or Step by Step webinars focused on crisis-responsive pedagogy and educator well-being.
• Develop practical skills in language-inclusive and psychosocial-responsive instruction, including role-play, multilingual materials, and child-friendly trauma mitigation.
• After training, form peer-support forums or reflection circles to share experiences, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement in practice.

Explore further: Non-formal education for refugee children in Moldova | ISSA