Development of tools for teachers to provide psychosocial support and social emotional learning to Syrian refugee girls in Turkey

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Tuesday VI)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Evidence-based advocacy for girls’ secondary education: how Malala fund partners advance local approaches to reach global goals

Proposal

Gamze Karadag is executive board member and vice president of Mavi Kalem, the Turkish member of the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE). They educate communities on women’s rights, health rights and gender equality and encourage advocacy on these issues.


Currently, Turkey is hosting approximately 3.6 million Syrian refugees, and more than 1.6 million of them are children (UNICEF, 2018). In 2017, 350,000 of these children were still out of school (UNICEF, 2017). In 2017, Malala Fund selected Gamze as a Gulmakai Champion. With her Gulmakai Network grant, Gamze leads research, advocacy and community efforts to make it easier for Syrian refugee girls to enrol and remain in Turkish public schools.

Mavi Kalem’s research in the Bringing Syrian Girls in Education and Advocacy Project interviewed families and teachers to better understand the realities around Syrian refugee education. Results showed that 75% of the children interviewed had some break in their education, and when these children go back to school, 48% have difficulties. Interviews with teachers from a Temporary Education Center (TEC) revealed that 36% of the teachers assessed the quality of education at TECs as poor and 32% reported needing information on working with children with trauma experience.


Following this project, Mavi Kalem launched the Developing a Model on Education of Syrian Children Project in April 2018. This project aims to understand the problems of teachers who are working with Syrian children, especially on participation in secondary education and the cultural adaptation of the INEE Psycho-Social Support Social Emotional Learning (PSS –SEL) Guidance Note, aimed at education of children affected by humanitarian crisis.

This project will interview 250 teachers who are working with Syrian students. Most of the preliminary data shows that teachers are not aware of the special needs of girls who have gone through humanitarian crisis. This early result shows the need for an adapted guide that will raise awareness on special needs of girls and how to provide girls with quality education. Teachers who recognize that girls do have special needs report that the top needs include: counseling services, awareness raising on child marriage, financial support, having a closer relation with the teacher for girls to express themselves, and needs for eliminating problems on social inclusion and groupings. They also cite the need to decrease household responsibilities, communicate with families, information on the changes of adolescence and cultural adaptation.

The outcomes of the research with teachers and the adapted guide will be introduced to decision makers, INGOs and NGOs. The guide will aim to increase the capacity of teachers through an introductory training series on implementation of the INEE PSS SEL guidance model and dissemination of this model in their professional environment.

Author

• Gamze Karadag, Mavi Kalem