How can schools and teachers best support refugee and asylum-seeking children?
The past few years have seen a dramatic increase in refugee and asylum-seeking children living in the United Kingdom. For many of these children crisis and conflict have direct and profound effects on their physical safety, wellbeing and ability to learn.
The International Rescue Committee can help …
That is why I am proud to support the International Rescue Committee’s Healing Classrooms programme, a free educational training programme that aims to support refugee and asylum-seeking children in UK schools by developing inclusive and nurturing learning spaces for them.
The Healing Classrooms programme is based on over 40 years of experience delivering education in emergencies and a decade of research and field testing. The programme was launched in the UK in May 2022. Since then, the IRC has worked with over 500 educators in 250 schools across the UK.
Resource: Healing Classrooms …
The training programme is based on the Healing Classrooms principles and provides practical guidance and resources that you can apply to your school context. As a result, students gain the necessary academic, social and emotional skills to develop their full potential.
The Healing Classrooms programme focuses on three key steps: preparing a safe space to land, building a community for learning and fostering academic success.
The IRC provides access to an online resource bank for teaching and teacher development. As an educator, you can find comprehensive country briefings to assist your school in developing a greater understanding of the culture and the education system of students arriving from Ukraine and Afghanistan. These briefings, along with the programme, have been created by IRC teams in the UK and crisis-affected countries around the world.
What does the future look like for refugee children?
The support provided by the IRC is essential for young people who may have experienced trauma or adversity. The Healing Classrooms programme helps teachers create a culture of respect amongst their pupils, which encourages peer-to-peer support, and in turn, this helps foster understanding between refugee and non-refugee students.
The IRC’s ultimate goal is to empower refugee children and give them the necessary skills and confidence required to lead fulfilling lives in the UK to achieve their full potential. By providing specialist teaching resources for educators working with refugees, the IRC hopes to create diverse learning environments that value diversity and promote inclusion for all students regardless of background or nationality.
To discover more, refer to The Healing Classrooms programme webpage. For more information please contact cintia.shiratori@rescue.org
This is a promotion
