This month, the YoU Decide consortium reached a significant milestone with the completion of three focus group discussions (FGDs) with displaced Ukrainian young people in Prague, Budapest, and Warsaw. The sessions were expertly coordinated by Heartwarmingly Research Consultancy and thoughtfully implemented by our national partners, Terre des Hommes in Hungary (TdH), OPU in Czechia, and ITAKA in Poland, together with members of our Youth Advisory Board.
YoU Decide is an EU-funded initiative led by Missing Children Europe, working across Hungary, Poland, and Czechia to support and protect displaced Ukrainian youth from the risks of going missing, trafficking, and exploitation. The project not only aims to strengthen safety and well-being, but also ensures that young people are meaningfully involved and able to shape decisions that affect their lives.
A Youth-Led and Trauma-Informed Approach
A key strength of this milestone was the way the sessions were shaped with young people, for young people. Before the FGDs, Heartwarmingly consulted the Youth Advisory Board to co-design practical elements that help create a genuinely safe and welcoming space. Together, we discussed:
- how to arrange the room to support comfort and equal participation,
- how to organise the flow of the discussion so questions felt natural and not overwhelming, and
- what type of refreshments would help put participants at ease — with the young people themselves suggesting pizza and snacks to make the conversations feel more relaxed and familiar.
Several YAB members also joined as youth co-facilitators, helping create an atmosphere where participants could share openly and see themselves reflected in the process.
A few recurring themes stood out across all three FGDs:
- Identity and belonging, including the tension between integrating in a new context and feeling different.
- Social isolation and shifting peer networks
Many lost previous peer circles and struggled to form new ones, often relying on online or Ukrainian-only networks. Still, they built small micro-communities through shared interests.
- Housing instability, with many living in shared or temporary spaces that limit rest, privacy, and study time.
- Education and work pressures, especially for those balancing school, side jobs, or family responsibilities.
- The central role of hobbies, often shifting from group activities to more individual forms of creativity, such as photography, drawing, music, swimming, or digital design, which became important coping mechanisms and sources of stability.
- Value of safe, participatory spaces
FGDs offered a rare, non-hierarchical space to speak openly. Informal settings and peer facilitation helped participants feel heard, validated, and empowered.
Throughout the sessions, young people spoke with honesty about their challenges and the strategies they use to navigate everyday life in displacement. Their resilience, creativity, and openness made this process especially rewarding for facilitators and partners alike. More detailed analysis is presented in Heartwarmingly’s blogpost, “Listening Beyond Words: Reflections on the YoU Decide Project’s Focus Group Milestone”
Looking Ahead
These insights form a strong foundation for the next steps of the YoU Decide project as we continue to build youth-informed and participatory research. Next step: Survey to gather more detailed info from the displaced youth of Ukraine.