What is the Healing Classrooms Approach?
Healing Classrooms is the IRC’s global teacher training programme which aims to help educators to support children’s recovery from trauma by creating safe and stable environments in schools.
The IRC’s Healing Classrooms – built on 30 years of education in emergencies experience and a decade of research and field testing – offers children a safe, predicable place to learn and cope with the consequences of conflict and displacement.
Unlike many education programmes that focus solely on teaching academic subjects, Healing Classrooms builds children’s social-emotional skills as well as their capacities to learn. This approach is based on research that shows social-emotional learning programs improve students’ life skills, behavior and academic performance.
To help teachers, school personnel and communities create Healing Classrooms, the IRC:
- Supports and trains teachers to establish safe, predictable and nurturing environments.
- Creates and provides teaching and learning materials to build students’ academic and social-emotional skills.
- Connects parents and caregivers with schools.
The Healing Classrooms Approach originated in 1997. It was the brainchild of IRC staff in the CRRD (Crisis Response, Recovery and Development) team who saw a need for robust teacher training for educators in refugee camps as a key method to help children to heal.
Healing Classrooms is based on the fact that children who do not feel safe cannot learn. Their brains are stuck in survival mode, and they are focusing on monitoring potential threats above all else.
In order for children to make friends, progress in their studies and to heal from any trauma they have experienced, they need to be in safe spaces where there are trusted adults they can seek out if they need support.
The techniques underpinning Healing Classrooms were developed using teacher and student interviews in Ethiopia, Lebanon and Guinea and after finding out which strategies could help educators to create healing classrooms in their various contexts, the strategies were field-tested for 6 years in various crisis-affected areas.
Since its inception, Healing Classrooms has come a long way. It now been adapted to meet the needs of children in our RAI (Resettlement, Asylum and Integration) settings in Europe and the United States to help children in mainstream schools to feel safe and settle into their new countries.
It has also been adapted numerous times to fit different country contexts, different age groups and stages of education. Currently, the IRC is on the ground providing education to children and youth in 20 countries affected by conflict and crisis.
Healing Classrooms looks different in every country as it is adapted to meet the specific needs of the educators and the communities they work within.
International Rescue Committee (IRC)
