Teachers’ experiences of supporting the mental health needs of refugee students in resource-poor settings: a qualitative study in Iran

Background: 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.

Objective: 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.

Results: 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.

Conclusion: 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