Engaging parents/caregivers to support children’s learning through the Home Learning Techniques initiative for Syrian refugees in Lebanon

• In Event: Practitioner Panel: Notes from the Field

Proposal

The world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement since the Second World War. 65.6 million people have been forcibly displaced from their homes. Among them are nearly 22.5 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18. Lebanon is host to over 1 million Syrian refugees; almost half of them are between the ages of 3 and 18. An estimated 290,000 of these children remain out of school (UNHCR, 2016).

Although the Lebanese government has made efforts to broaden access to the public education system, barriers to education remain high and include associated costs of going to school, such as learning materials, books and transport. Other issues include safety in schools and language challenges; the curriculum in school is in French and English, while children from Syria learn in Arabic.

Concern Worldwide is working with Syrian refugees in Lebanon to improve access to quality learning opportunities in Akkar and Tripoli. Concern realizes the importance of community involvement and the critical role that parents/caregivers play in their children’s learning and development. While parents are beginning to recognize that they are their children’s first teachers, they often lack the knowledge and skills required to support their children at home. In an assessment carried out by Concern to better understand how they support their children in the early grades, 68% reported lacking adequate skills to help their children effectively. Based on this need, Concern has developed the Home Learning Techniques initiative which helps parents/caregivers with strategies to support their children in the early years.

The Home Learning Techniques curriculum is still in the stages of development and 16 training sessions over a cycle of 4 months will be provided to parents/caregivers. The curriculum will include topics such as the importance of education, supporting children with their homework and engaging in literacy practices. There is considerable evidence of a relationship between reading regularly to a child and that child’s later reading achievement (National Research Council, 1998) and within the Home Learning Techniques curriculum parents/caregivers will be empowered to support their children’s literacy skills, by telling stories and reading to them, regardless of their literacy levels.

A comprehensive data collection strategy is in place and includes needs assessments, focus group discussions, knowledge, attitudes and practices surveys, observations and a Most Significant Change technique.

The project is in the planning stages and will be implemented in the coming months. This is a good opportunity to assess parents/caregivers initial attitudes, knowledge and practices around the role they can play in their children’s learning. While it will be too soon to see any significant changes in behaviour in the coming months, Concern will meet with parents/caregivers to assess whether they are more knowledgeable of the topics after the initial trainings. We hope to share some of our initial learnings from the curriculum and trainings and gain critical feedback on how we might further strengthen this initiative.

Author

• Shezleen Vellani, Concern Worldwide