Emotional wellbeing in crisis settings

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A child who has fled war does not arrive at school ready to learn as if nothing happened. Stress, loss and disruption sit in the way of reading and arithmetic.

The International Rescue Committee's Healing Classrooms approach treats that head-on, training teachers to make classrooms predictable, supportive and emotionally safe, and pairing remedial tutoring with short social and emotional activities.

THE PLACE
Conflict and displacement settings

THE INVESTMENT
Investing in a simple principle: children learn best in environments that feel safe, predictable and supportive

THE WIN
Tested through years of randomised research with New York University, it improved learning for children in some of the world's hardest places.

THE PROBLEM

Across conflict and displacement settings, tens of millions of children are out of school or struggling in overcrowded, under-resourced classrooms. Many have experienced violence, loss and repeated upheaval. Toxic stress affects memory, attention and behaviour, the very faculties learning relies on, and teachers are rarely trained or supported to respond.

The result is that even children who reach a classroom often cannot catch up, and the education-in-emergencies sector has long lacked rigorous evidence about what actually helps.

TAKING ACTION

The IRC developed its Healing Classrooms approach in the early 2000s around a simple principle: children learn best in environments that feel safe, predictable and supportive.

Teachers are trained to build warm routines, manage behaviour positively and support children's wellbeing, while remedial tutoring helps children catch up on reading and maths. Short, targeted social and emotional learning activities, sometimes called Brain Games, build skills such as focus, working memory and emotion regulation.

From 2016, through a research partnership with New York University's Global TIES for Children under the Education in Emergencies: Evidence for Action initiative, the IRC tested these components rigorously across multiple crisis contexts. 

INVESTMENT SUCCESS!

The IRC and NYU ran randomised controlled trials over several years in Lebanon and Niger. In Diffa, Niger, a region hit by recurrent attacks, 22 weeks of Healing Classrooms remedial tutoring significantly improved children's reading and maths, and adding targeted social and emotional activities improved their overall school grades, though the study found little direct effect on measured social-emotional skills

In Lebanon, home to nearly half a million school-aged Syrian children, half an academic year of tutoring improved children's ability to regulate their behaviour and their perceptions of school compared with peers who had only public schooling.

The work has become a reference point for evidence in the education-in-emergencies field. 

KEY WINS

Reading and math gains after 22 weeks of tutoring (randomised trial, Niger) 

~500,000 school-aged Syrian children in Lebanon, the population it worked among 

3 countries of rigorous randomised research (Lebanon, Niger, Sierra Leone) 

WHY INVESTMENT WORKED

Wellbeing treated as a precondition for learning

The classroom is designed to be emotionally safe first, so academic teaching can land.

Teachers supported, not blamed

Training and coaching help teachers in impossible conditions create structure and warmth.

Tutoring plus social-emotional learning, tested separately

The design isolates what each component adds, producing usable evidence rather than a black box.

Rigorous research in hard places

Randomised trials across Lebanon and Niger show that credible evaluation is possible even in crisis.

Delivered through public schools

Working with formal school systems supports children where they already are and points toward scale.

Honest about limits

The research reported where effects were strong and where they were not, strengthening the evidence rather than overselling it.

SCALE AND SPREAD

Healing Classrooms and the tools built around it have been used by the IRC across many conflict-affected and displacement contexts, including Niger, Nigeria, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Sierra Leone.

The initiative was designed to have a catalytic effect on the wider sector, producing measurement tools, curricula and evidence that other organisations and governments can adopt. Through its Airbel Impact Lab, the IRC continues to refine and spread the approach. 

PARTNERS AND PHILANTHROPY

The Healing Classrooms evidence base was built through a research-practice partnership between the International Rescue Committee and New York University's Global TIES for Children, with start-up funding for the Education in Emergencies: Evidence for Action initiative from Dubai Cares, a philanthropic organisation based in the United Arab Emirates.

The work sits within the IRC's Airbel Impact Lab and has drawn support from a range of humanitarian and philanthropic donors.

HEALING CLASSROOMS AT A GLANCE

WHERE

Conflict and displacement settings including Niger, Nigeria, Lebanon, DRC and Sierra Leone

FOUNDED

Healing Classrooms approach developed by the IRC in the early 2000s; research partnership from 2016

LED BY

International Rescue Committee; research partnership with NYU Global TIES for Children

FOCUS

Trauma-informed pedagogy, teacher support, remedial tutoring and targeted social-emotional learning

CORE IDEA

Make classrooms emotionally safe so children in crisis can catch up and learn

HEADLINE RESULT

Improved reading and math after 22 weeks (Niger trial); better behaviour regulation (Lebanon trial)

EVIDENCE

Randomised controlled trials in Lebanon and Niger; research across three countries

 

PHILANTHROPY

Dubai Cares (research start-up funding); IRC Airbel Impact Lab and partners

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