Platform project KidsLikeUs shows what happens when children design their own safe spaces

On 15 December 2025, the KidsLikeUs final conference brought together 65 participants from 15 countries. The online event drew educators and school leaders, designers, municipal representatives, psychologists, physiotherapists and accessibility specialists, reflecting the cross-sectoral character of the project itself. Three themes ran through the programme: inclusive design, resilience building and trauma-informed practice with children.

Keynote: design for all

Prof. Rama Gheerawo, President of EIDD Design for All and former Director of the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design, opened the conference. He presented inclusive design as both a creative and an ethical practice, arguing that designers and leaders should engage directly with the people they design for. Referring to the Gaia Declaration signed by EIDD members, he described briefs for people and for the planet as inseparable, and made the case that design work should be affordable, resilient and socially aware. He identified KidsLikeUs as an example of the Design for All approach in practice.

Co-creation as a working method

Project coordinator Beata Fabisiak (Poznan University of Life Sciences, Project Lead Partner and BSR Mental Health Platform partner) set out the collaborative model behind the project. Children, parents and teachers were involved in developing the solutions, with children who have disabilities, who are neurodivergent or who have different language backgrounds treated as central contributors rather than as an additional group. Working across several countries and educational traditions produced solutions that were easier to adapt in different settings.

Practices presented

Maya Lindvall (YogaYou, Sweden) described a trauma-informed approach to children’s yoga built around nervous system regulation, choice and safety. Sessions combine mindful breathing, movement, playful self-awareness and empowerment techniques, and are deliberately free of performance expectations. She reported particular benefits for displaced children from Ukraine, and has written two guides so that schools, NGOs and practitioners can adopt the method.

Lotten Svensson and Henrik Helming (YogaYou) presented watercolour workshops and group exhibitions that give children a non-verbal route to expressing emotion, alongside outdoor “Nature Calling” sessions teaching basic survival and navigation skills. Many activities were adapted to include whole families.

Rima Boškevičienė (SmarterStep, Lithuania) introduced movement programmes for ages 4 to 15 and sand therapy sessions, both low-cost and straightforward to run in schools. Following the pilot, the municipality of Ukmerge allocated budget to continue the work in local schools.

Beata Fabisiak also presented 3D pen workshops in which children design and build a “dream safe place” they can hold in their hands. Teachers reported noticeable improvements in concentration, including among children who usually find it hard to stay on task.

Sensory gardens

Two permanent sensory gardens were established. In Estonia, Kaire Luuk (Saue municipality) presented the garden at Nissi Primary School, developed with school staff, project partners and local residents on the foundation of an older school building. Plants are paired with emotions and short descriptive notices to help children name what they feel. In Poland, the garden at Poznan University of Life Sciences uses zones for arrival, activity, focus and relaxation, with a tactile mural and material-based activities along the route.

Both draw on the Superhero Sensory Garden Ideas Collection, a framework structured at basic, intermediate and advanced levels so that teams can choose interventions according to budget, time and space.

Tools and prototypes

Anja Poberznik (Satakunta University of Applied Sciences, Finland) presented a set of digital and physical prototypes supporting emotional literacy and sensory regulation: an emoji recognition game in browser and flashcard versions, a sensory board that responds to touch with sound, a music cushion, a projector tent for calm spaces and a VR relaxation activity. The Sensory Accessibility app, which assesses how restorative or stressful a space is, has been adapted for children and is available in English, Finnish and Ukrainian without download.

Jörgen Dobris (TSENTER, Estonia) demonstrated a meditation panel with a stability sensor and a breathing light that paces inhalation and exhalation through colour and speed. Vesta Juocevičiūtė (SmarterStep) presented a VR fairy tale that embeds breathwork and simple tasks in a narrative structure.

Freely available results

All materials are published on the project website and in the KidsLikeUs eBook, organised as a collection of wellbeing activities with photographs, durations, intended outcomes, material lists and keywords. Activities are grouped at three levels, from a five-minute calming exercise to building a garden. Presentations and short videos are included to reduce preparation time for facilitators. The open-access approach is intended to make the results usable in lower-resource settings as well as better-equipped schools.

Connecting to regional policy

Closing the conference on behalf of EUSBSR Policy Area Health and the BSR Mental Health Platform, Wiebke Marcus (NDPHS Secretariat) reflected on the project’s relevance for regional public health. KidsLikeUs illustrates how mental wellbeing can be promoted across sectors rather than only within clinical services, and its anchoring in a policy platform is intended to help community-level innovations connect to wider public health frameworks. Participants were encouraged to treat the end of the funding period as a starting point for integration into policy, educational practice and municipal planning.

The conference ended with a short video of children sharing messages in several languages, prepared by the team at Satakunta University of Applied Sciences.

KidsLikeUs ran from January 2023 to December 2025 with funding from Interreg Baltic Sea Region, is a flagship of EUSBSR Policy Area Health and a project of the Interreg Baltic Sea Region Mental Health Platform contributing to the work streams of mental health at school and at work and mental health across the life course.

Original article and project page

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