Intervention(s)
The intervention is a school-based mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) program designed to integrate psychosocial tools into classroom instruction for students in grades 5 through 7. Developed in partnership with the Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports (MoESCS) and the Teach for Armenia Foundation, the program targets both displaced children from Nagorno-Karabakh and host students in Armenian public schools. The program deliberately avoids explicit "mental health" framing in school communications, a design choice made in consultation with the Ministry to navigate stigma and facilitate parental acceptance.
The program operates through a mentor-centered delivery model and consists of three components:
Component 1: Mentor-led teacher training and in-classroom support. Trained mentors work alongside teachers to build their capacity to integrate MHPSS activities into daily instruction. The program draws on a database of over 62 psychosocial activities spanning different subjects, grade levels, durations, and activity types. These activities were designed with the support of international and local mental health experts and local curriculum specialists, taking the roll-out of the current national curriculum into consideration. The mentoring follows a phased structure over nine months with gradually decreasing intensity:
Phase 1 (Months 1-3): Full-time intense training. Mentors engage with teachers for 40 hours per week (5 hours per day, 4 days per week). The first month focuses on group training sessions after classes and in-classroom support, where mentors introduce MHPSS tools and observe their application. In the second month, out-of-classroom support shifts toward personalized one-on-one discussions with individual teachers requiring additional assistance. The third month consolidates learning, with increased in-classroom support and brief individual check-ins to ensure all teachers can integrate the tools into their teaching.
Phase 2 (Months 4-6): Part-time mentorship and monitoring. Mentor support reduces to 10 hours per week, focused primarily on in-classroom observation, feedback, and guidance. The mentor's role evolves toward ensuring adoption and fostering teacher autonomy in implementing the MHPSS tools.
Phase 3 (Months 7-9): Light support and follow-up. Mentors conduct monthly school visits and weekly phone-based check-ins. This phase is designed to reinforce practices, troubleshoot implementation challenges, and prepare school staff to continue MHPSS activities independently after the program ends.
Component 2: Referral system for specialized support. Children identified as requiring additional support are referred to school psychologists for specialized services according to their needs. The school psychologist provides continuity in referral services, while the principal ensures institutional support for MHPSS integration beyond the program period.
Component 3: Activities recommendation tool (cross-randomized within treatment). A key implementation challenge is activity selection: teachers must eventually choose independently from the database of 62+ psychosocial activities, a task that field observations suggest is difficult given the breadth of options and heterogeneity of classroom contexts. To test whether data-driven guidance can improve activity-context matching, access to a technology platform is cross-randomized within treated schools.
The tool is a web application in which teachers input five classroom parameters (number of students, subject area, grade level, duration, and preferred activity type) and receive a ranked list of recommended activities. Rankings are based on a composite score weighting activity effectiveness (based on mentor evaluations), fit with the teacher's classroom parameters, and teacher-reported preferences from prior usage. Activity data are collected by mentors through structured journals administered via KoboToolbox, processed via Google Sheets, and served to the web application. All tool usage (logins, activities viewed, activities saved, and activities implemented) is tracked by the team.