Course

The Healing Classrooms Continuing Professional Development (CPD) course is suitable for teachers and school staff currently supporting students from refugee backgrounds.

It covers key topics that equip staff to appropriately support students who have experienced trauma from forced displacement and conflict, such as toxic stress, trauma-informed teaching, identity informed approaches to healing, culturally responsive pedagogy and more, through a 3-step Healing Classrooms programme. 

This course is most relevant for UK-based educators working in mainstream education settings, but you are more than welcome to complete the course if you are based outside of the UK.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) works in more than 40 countries and over 29 US cities to help people affected by humanitarian crises to survive, recover and rebuild their lives.

The IRC helps to restore health, safety, education, economic wellbeing and power to people devastated by conflict and disaster. Education is the ultimate empowerment tool for children, their families and communities to survive and recover from conflict or crisis. It is what enables people to drive their own health, safety and prosperity. 

This course was designed by qualified teachers from the IRC’s UK Education Team in conjunction with IRC staff from around the globe. Built on decades of research and field-testing, the Healing Classrooms programme has been utilised in more than 20 countries both in conflict-affected zones and in resettlement countries to enable children and young people to heal from trauma and toxic stress. 

This is an interactive course with a range of activities for you to engage with, including reflections on your current practice as an educator, learning from others who have taken part in interactive Healing Classrooms workshops led by IRC staff, and taking away key techniques to trial in your own classroom.