Darya Palatna

Darya has a background in social work and social psychology. She began her professional career as a social worker with children who experienced trauma or violence, families in difficult life circumstances, and foster and adoptive families. The early years of her career were devoted to work at a social and psychological rehabilitation center for children. Her main focus was ensuring every child live in a loving family by either being reunited with the biological family or placed in a new family. 

Currently Darya works as executive director of International Leadership and Development Center (ILDC), an international non-profit founded in 2008 in Kyiv, Ukraine.  ILDC promotes child welfare best practices through the development of a comprehensive competency-based training system. Since 2008 ILDC has trained over 16,500 child welfare leaders, professionals, volunteers, and foster and adoptive parents all over Ukraine and abroad.  The goal is achieving the highest standards in child welfare systems, capacity building, and community development.

Since 2018 Darya is a PhD student at a leading university in Ukraine. She is writing her doctorate paper on the mobilization of communities in the process of development inclusive environment.