Rajabi Mohsen, Williamson Victoria, Calam Rachel, Karl Anke, Halligan Sarah L
Department of Psychology, University of Bath, Bath, UK.
Centre for Military Health Research, Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
Eur J Psychotraumatol. 2025 Dec;16(1):2551736. doi: 10.1080/20008066.2025.2551736. Epub 2025 Sep 10.
Exposure to traumatic events is common amongst children from refugee backgrounds. Given the restricted access of refugee children to formal specialist resources and disrupted parental support mechanisms in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), teachers are increasingly expected to be the primary responders to the complex psychosocial needs of trauma-exposed refugee children. However, despite LMICs hosting over two-thirds of the world's refugee children, our current knowledge of how teachers respond to these needs is predominantly drawn from studies conducted in well-resourced, high-income countries, which fails to capture the unique experiences of teachers in inadequately resourced schools in LMICs. We aimed to explore qualitatively the experiences of school teachers in responding to the mental health and psychosocial needs of trauma-exposed refugee students in resource-poor settings. Method: Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 30 teachers from eleven schools in socio-economically deprived communities in Iran. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Teachers expressed that establishing close relationships with refugee students works as a 'strategy' to identify the trauma-related mental health needs of this population. Almost all teachers strongly emphasised that achieving positive outcomes from their support efforts requires a collaborative home-school partnership, with refugee caregivers playing a fundamental role in this process. It was also described by teachers that a welcoming school climate facilitated refugee students' sense of belonging and maximised their ability to offer support. Whereas schools were recognised as the most accessible place for disadvantaged refugee children to receive timely psychosocial support, teachers noted context-specific barriers, such as financial stress, that negatively influenced their capacity to continuously support refugee-background students. Our findings highlight the need to expand the evidence base to capture the unique experiences of LMIC refugees and those supporting them, and to develop contextually-culturally relevant training programmes to help teachers better respond to the unique needs of refugee students.
遭受创伤性事件在有难民背景的儿童中很常见。鉴于中低收入国家（LMICs）的难民儿童获得正规专业资源的机会有限，且父母的支持机制受到干扰，教师越来越被期望成为应对遭受创伤的难民儿童复杂心理社会需求的主要响应者。然而，尽管中低收入国家收容了全球三分之二以上的难民儿童，但我们目前对教师如何应对这些需求的了解主要来自资源丰富的高收入国家进行的研究，这些研究未能捕捉到中低收入国家资源不足学校中教师的独特经历。我们旨在定性地探索资源匮乏环境中学校教师应对遭受创伤的难民学生心理健康和心理社会需求的经历。方法：对来自伊朗社会经济贫困社区11所学校的30名教师进行了半结构化定性访谈。使用主题分析法对数据进行了分析。教师们表示，与难民学生建立密切关系是识别这一群体与创伤相关心理健康需求的一种“策略”。几乎所有教师都强烈强调，要从他们的支持努力中取得积极成果，需要家庭与学校建立合作关系，难民照顾者在这一过程中发挥着根本性作用。教师们还表示，一个温馨的学校氛围有助于难民学生产生归属感，并最大限度地提高他们提供支持的能力。虽然学校被认为是弱势难民儿童获得及时心理社会支持最容易到达的地方，但教师们指出了一些具体背景下的障碍，如经济压力，这些障碍对他们持续支持有难民背景学生的能力产生了负面影响。我们的研究结果强调，有必要扩大证据基础，以捕捉中低收入国家难民及其支持者的独特经历，并制定与背景文化相关的培训计划，以帮助教师更好地应对难民学生的独特需求。
