Spynka Early Childhood Centres - Free Childcare Enabling Ukrainian Refugee Mothers to Work and Study

Since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, over a million Ukrainian refugees have settled in Poland, most of them women with children. A major barrier to their labour-market entry was the lack of affordable, culturally appropriate childcare while they searched for jobs or studied Polish.

The Comenius Foundation for Child Development (Fundacja Rozwoju Dzieci, FRD), with UNICEF funding and support from the Polish government and EU funds, built the Spynka network of fee-free early-childhood centres, growing to more than 75 sites across eight Polish voivodeships. More than 200 educators, 90% of them Ukrainian nationals, were trained through 160 hours of initial training plus 120 hours a year of continuing education.

By 2024 the centres had served close to 10,000 Ukrainian children and a similar number of mothers and caregivers. More broadly, UNICEF reports over 34,000 Ukrainian children enrolled in Polish public preschools and 12,000 more in the alternative and non-formal early-childhood services it supports. Parents report children 'playing more calmly' and settling in, though these are qualitative accounts rather than a formal outcome study.

As of the most recent reporting, most centres' funding was secured only through the end of 2023, with financial sustainability beyond that point explicitly flagged as uncertain by programme staff — a reminder that scaled emergency childcare needs a durable funding path to keep delivering labour-market benefits.