ADAPT: Spatial Strategies for Veterans' Recovery

Veterans' recovery is one of the defining challenges Ukraine faces during and after the war

Yet a systemic approach to this issue remains the exception rather than the standard. This is where spatial planning becomes critical — as a tool that can transform fragmented services into a coherent ecosystem of support.

Veterans' recovery in Ukraine often fails not because of a lack of recovery services, but because they are unevenly distributed and their governance is fragmented.

Last spring, with support from the Robert Bosch Foundation, we at Restart launched ADAPT: a project focused on spatial strategies for veterans' recovery. We have just completed the first pilot in Ivano-Frankivsk and the region, and several insights stand out for those planning and designing for recovery.

To address the problem comprehensively, ADAPT operates simultaneously across three interconnected levels:

• Regional (oblast’);
• Urban (city);
• Local (test ground located on the hospital grounds).

This structure is intentional to avoid strategies without delivery or pilots without systems change. Working across all three scales allowed us to test how they supplement each other.

At the regional level, we examined how existing veteran policy translates or fails to translate into accessible systems on the ground. At the urban level, we explored what an operational model for early recovery could realistically look like. At the local level, we tested a comprehensive recovery approach under real institutional constraints.

The key takeaway: recovery is not only about healthcare. It is a whole socio-spatial ecosystem — and it needs to be designed as such from the start.

Rehabilitation does not equal recovery — this is the main thesis that the ADAPT project seeks to affirm

While rehabilitation is essential, long-term recovery depends on a broader ecosystem of systems that need to be activated early on.

Through our work, we identified seven recovery systems that shape outcomes for veterans:

• Physical and psychological rehabilitation;
• Social activities and culture;
• Sports;
• Administrative and social services;
• Education and self-realisation;
• Mobility;
• Nature and public spaces.

These systems are interdependent, and when integrated early, can significantly improve recovery outcomes.

At the implementation level, adaptive sports offers one of the clearest illustrations of this logic. We advocate for retrofitting hospital open spaces to support adaptive sports activities that patients can use independently or with therapists.

This is one example that is not a large infrastructure investment; however, it significantly improves patient recovery during rehabilitation. And it has the potential to create recovery pathways extending beyond the hospital and into the city.

For urban planners, hromada administrations, and ministries, the question is no longer whether integrated recovery systems are desirable, but whether recovery can be effective without designing them this way.

What has been done so far within the ADAPT project?

Over the past year, the project has progressed from analytical framing to transferable methodological tools. ADAPT is currently in a research and early design phase, focused on building an evidence base before transferring to other contexts and moving toward implementation. So far, we have completed the following:

• Regional- and city-level research reports are under external expert review;
• A sociological survey was conducted across the Ivano-Frankivsk region to understand how veterans and military personnel access and engage with recovery systems;
• Phone interviews were held with 24 hromadas in the Ivano-Frankivsk region on the local implementation of the national veterans' policy;
• The concept and initial design for an adaptive sports ground at the Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Clinical Hospital were co-developed with veterans and rehabilitation therapists;
• Methodological, step-by-step guidelines were developed for institutions interested in planning adaptive sports grounds.

If this work is relevant to your role in veterans' recovery, we’re open to connecting and exchanging insights.

The role of spatial planning in veterans' recovery

A question that warrants closer attention, and grows more pressing as the number of veterans increases, is how cities and regions are responding spatially to this shift in demand: more accessible environments, better-connected services, and facilities designed for multiple uses and users.

Over the past nine months, at Restart, we have been analysing the spatial patterns, distribution, and accessibility of key recovery systems for veterans in the Ivano-Frankivsk region and the city. One recurring finding is fragmentation. Services that are technically available but spatially disconnected, such as accessible facilities that cannot be reached via accessible routes.

Accessibility is not only about public infrastructure. Barrier-free businesses play a critical role in making recovery systems functional in everyday life. For urban planners, municipalities, and policymakers, this points to a clear task: adopting a cross-sectoral approach to planning barrier-free routes and facilities, and responding to on-the-ground needs.

The findings from ADAPT point toward a broader reorientation in how recovery is planned — one that is spatial, cross-sectoral, and embedded in the everyday environments veterans return to.