Healing After Conflict. Using Edtech Solutions and Expert Mentoring to Improve Mental Health and Learning for Students in Armenia

The MHPSS program is a scalable, needs-based initiative targeting teachers and students in grades 5 through 7. It includes three key components:
(1) 9 months of specialized training and mentorship to support teachers in integrating MHPSS tools into classroom activities. Mentors provide 20 hours of support per week in the first 3 months (phase 1), 5 hours of support per week in the second 3 months (phase 2), and mostly remote support in the last 3 months (phase 3).
(2) Access to an online platform with tailored, data-driven recommendations for teachers, starting in phase 2.
(3) Referral system for specialized support from school psychologists for children with greater needs.
The second component involves an a tech-supported mentor feedback loop for teachers, which is a web-based intervention that uses KoboToolbox for structured data collection from mentors and a Shiny dashboard for visualizing insights and generating activity recommendations for teachers.

This component ensures sustained support and complements lighter mentorship in later phases, promoting ongoing teacher development and the intervention’s long-term effectiveness. This platform is being developed and will be beta-tested during the first wave with a subgroup of teachers. Moreover, we will use the data from the first wave and second wave to train the algorithm of the platform.

2025-03-03

2026-11-30

Student mental health (stress, anxiety, depression)

Academic performance — standardized math and language assessments
Emotional well-being
Emotional regulation
Social-emotional skills and school behavior
Teacher's mental health and wellbeing

The first experimental group (T1) will receive 9 months of intervention, which includes all activities from the three components described earlier. In addition to the teacher training and in-classroom support from mentors, as well as the referral system, teachers in schools assigned to this group will also receive tailored, data-driven recommendations from the tech-supported mentor feedback loop. We will pilot the platform during the first wave of the study and make any necessary adjustments based on the results. Therefore, this experimental group will participate in waves 2 and 3 only. The total number of schools assigned to this treatment group will be 75 (3,750 students and 825 teachers and school staff, approximately), with half in wave 2 and half in wave 3.

The second experimental group (T2) will receive 9 months of intervention, including activities from components 1 and 3 described earlier (training and in-classroom support from mentors, as well as the referral system). This group will be included across all three waves of the study. In total, we will have 150 schools (7,500 students and 1,650 teachers and school staff, approximately), with 75 in wave 1 and 75 in waves 2 and 3.

The control group (C) in each wave will not receive any activities or content related to the intervention. They will be invited to complete the surveys following the same protocols as the schools assigned to the treatment group in each wave. We will have a control group in each wave, consisting of 75 schools per wave, for a total of 225 control schools (11,250 students and 2,475 teachers and school staff, approximately).

Not available

Randomization done in office by a code prepared by the researchers

School

Yes

450 schools

22,500 students, 4,950 teachers

Students:3,750 in T1, 7,500 in T2, and 11,250 in C
Teachers and school staff: 825 in T1, 1,650 in T2, and 2,475 in C