Life Skills Training Among 7-13 Years Old Afghan Refugee Children in Rafsanjan Camp, Kerman, Iran

Background and Purpose: Children as the most vulnerable refugees need a special care to improve their psychological-social capabilities and physical health. It seems that life skills education based on essential psychological and social skills is needed for a healthy life and is one of the most important teaching requirements for these children. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of three developed life skills education packages (for the grade one, four and five students) that carried out among Afghan children refugees in Rafsanjan camp in Iran.

Methods: All 7-13 years old children attended in a three-month life skill training course. During the course the occurrence frequency of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ behaviors in four categories of hygiene, aggression, respectfulness and psychological difficulties were recorded by the coaches as well as the parents through a structured observation checklist. Semi-structured interviews with the parents and coaches also applied.

Results: Comparisons of teachers and coaches’ reports between first and third month in all categories using Chi-Square test were statistically significant in all grades (P-value <0.05) except aggression for grade 4 and 5. The training program have had a positive impact on the students’ personal hygiene and neat appearance, reduction of physical and verbal aggression, respect for the rights of others and class rules, reduction of psychological difficulties and improvement in cognitive-emotional abilities.

Conclusion: It seems that for making long lasting improvements, a long term continuous education is required to let the learned skills get stablished in the students through everyday real life situations.