Overview
At times of crisis, early childhood development (ECD) workers, and schools/centers play an important role in the lives of children in the early childhood stage (less than 8 years old) and their parents; they are intended to act as the "great equalizer", offering not only curriculum teaching, but also additional social-emotional learning and educational opportunities for vulnerable children who are more likely to suffer in such situations.
CD teachers, despite this responsibility, often lack tools and methods to promote their well-being, and to cope with vulnerable children and difficult situations. They are also rarely recognized as members of a workforce with specialized knowledge or competencies, and they hardly receive the support needed to uphold this great responsibility to young children, their families, and society.
Description
ECD frontliners working in the field might face many challenges, stories, and situations that affect their mental health and could cause them distress and complications. Hence, these negative consequences could affect their ability to perform their jobs and provide the services they usually provide with the same quality. It might also affect their ability to respond to the children's emotional and social needs.
It was reported that ECD frontliners, such as teachers and instructors, have the highest levels of psychological symptoms, such as anxiety, in addition to high levels of stress and low levels of well-being. Findings indicate that ECD frontliners who already struggle with poor well-being and poor working conditions will suffer more from emotional and physical burdens while working with children, especially vulnerable children.
A study made by Kwon et al. (2019) found a positive significant relationship between the depressive symptoms of ECD teachers, the quality of emotional and behavioral support ECD teachers provide, and the behavioral problems of their students. According to this study, teachers with depressive symptoms are less likely to provide positive emotional and behavioral support to children since these symptoms may limit their ability to provide warm care and nurturing environments. Moreover, due to their psychological stress, teachers may exhibit negative moods, poor behavioral modeling, and poor self-regulation, which the children may respond to and learn from. Hence, providing sensitive-responsive interactions and nurturing environments for children in the classroom can have both immediate and long-term impacts on their development. These interactions were highly associated with improvements in social skills, receptive language, expressive language, early literacy skills, and school preparation. Therefore, young children's health, growth, and learning are extremely dependent upon the mental health of their teachers, the quality of emotional support, and the positive responsive interactions between the teacher and the children.
For this reason, Arab Resource Collective (ARC) offers a Mental Health \& Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) online toolkit tailored for ECD frontliners. Using a holistic and multidisciplinary approach, this toolkit will provide the adequate support, tools, and resources for ECD frontliners, which can improve their resilience and ability to cope with stressors, which in turn will promote their mental health and improve their job satisfaction and ultimately benefit the children they work with.
For the development of the MHPSS online toolkit, a needs assessment was conducted in partnership with Modern University for Business \& Science (MUBS); a sample of 915 ECD frontliners answered an online questionnaire about mental health, psychological symptoms, coping skills, quality of life, work performance, and attitudes toward psychological interventions and emotional support. Based on this assessment (study), and based on the needs of ECD frontliners (as shown in the study results), the topics of the toolkit were identified.
The MHPSS online toolkit was developed by mental health experts and specialists using validated mental health resources; this toolkit is not a psychological therapy, it is a stress management toolkit, in which the techniques that were included were chosen carefully to help ECD frontliners deal with different stressors. It was also reviewed by mental health experts and education experts, and it was proofread in Arabic.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- ECD frontliners working directly with children under 8 years old in Lebanon (teachers, social workers, caretakers in nurseries, etc.).
- Individuals who are able to access and complete an online MHPSS toolkit.
- Individuals who are not currently employed in the mental health field.
- Participants who have not received prolonged mental health services (psychological therapy).
Exclusion Criteria:
- Professionals who work specifically in the mental health field (child psychologists, mental health support providers).
- Individuals who have received prolonged mental health services (to prevent potential bias due to prior mental health intervention experience).