Play, resilience, and belonging: toward an integrated theoretical framework for understanding the adaptation of ukrainian refugee children

Since the large-scale displacement of Ukrainian families following the escalation of the war in 2022, community- and school-based initiatives have become increasingly important in supporting refugee children's adaptation in host countries. Although play, resilience, and belonging have each been widely recognised as important for children's well-being and development, they have largely been examined within separate strands of scholarship. This theoretical article develops an integrated three-tier framework that brings together Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, social-ecological resilience theory, and research on play and belonging to explain how displaced children adapt within host-country contexts. The proposed framework conceptualises children's adaptation as a recursive process operating across three interconnected tiers. Tier one situates children within their ecological environments; tier two identifies resilience as a multisystemic process emerging through interactions between children and the protective resources available within those environments; and tier three positions play as the primary mechanism through which resilience processes are enacted, while belonging functions as both an outcome and a reinforcing relational process. The framework is illustrated through the context of Ukrainian refugee children in Estonia and generates empirically testable propositions to guide future research. By integrating ecological context, resilience processes, and play-based relational mechanisms into a single explanatory framework, the article offers a conceptual foundation for understanding children's adaptation following forced displacement and provides implications for the design and evaluation of community- and school-based initiatives supporting displaced children.