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Good Morning

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Worldwide, over 1.5 billion people 
experience armed conflict

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In response, people are forced to flee 
their country.

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leaving over 15 million refugees.

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Children without a doubt are

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the most innocent and vulnerable victims.

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But not just from the obvious
physical dangers,

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but from, the often, unspoken affects
that wars have on their families.

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The experiences of war leave children 
at real high risk

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for the development of emotional 
and behavioural problems.

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Children as we can only imagine,

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will feel worried, threaten and at risk.

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But there is good news,

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the quality of care that children recieve

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in their families, can have a 
more significant effects

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on their well-being, than from

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the actual experiences of war that 
they have been exposed to.

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So actually, children can be protected

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by warm, secure parenting,

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during and after conflict.

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In 2011, I was a first year PHD Student

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in the University Of Manchester

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School Of Physiological Sciences.

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Like many of you here, I watched 
the crisis in Syria

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unfold in front of me on the TV.

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My family are originally from Syria,
and very early on

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I lost several family members
in really horrifying ways.

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I sat and I gathered with my family 
and watched the TV.

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So we have all seen those scenes,

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bombs destroying, buildings, 
chaos, destruction.

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and people screaming and running.

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It was always the people screaming
and running

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that really got me the most.

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Specially those terrified 
looking children.

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I was a mother to two young,
typically inquisitive children.

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They were five and six then.

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At an age when they typically 
ask lots and lots of questions

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and expect real convincing answers.

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So I began to wonder what it might be like

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to parent my children in a war-zone 
and a refugee camp.

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Would my children change?

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Would my daughter's bright happy 
eyes lose their shine?

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Would my son's really relax 
care-free nature

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become fearful and withdrawn?

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How would I cope?

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Would I change?

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As psychologists and parent's trainers

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we know that arming parents

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with skills and caring for their children

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can have a huge effect on their well-being.

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We call this parents training.

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So the questions I had

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was could Parent Training programs 
be useful for families

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while they're still in war-zones or 
refugee camps?

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Could we reach them with 
advice or training

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that would help them through 
the struggles?

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So, I approached my PHD supervisor,

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professor Rachel Calam,

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with the idea of using my academic skills

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to make some changes in the real world.

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I wasn't quite sure, exactly,
what I wanted to do.

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She listened carefully and patiently,

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And then to my joy, 
she said:

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"If that is what you want to do,

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and it means so much to you, then 
let's do it.

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Let's find ways to see if 
parent programs can be useful

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for families in this contexts."

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So for the past five years myself 
and my colleagues,

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professor Calam and Dr. Kim Cartwright

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have been working on ways 
to support families

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that have experienced war
and displacement.

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Now, to know how to help 
families that have been

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through conflict, support their children,

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The first step must obviously be

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to ask them what are they 
struggling with. Right?

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I mean, it seems obvious,



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but often those are the 
most vulnerable

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that we are trying to support that
we actually don't ask.

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How many times have we just assumed

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we know exactly the right thing that 
is gonna help someone or something

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without actually asking them first.

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So i travelled to the refugee camps 
in Syria and in Turkey.

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And I sat with families and I listened.

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I listened to the parenting challenges

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I listened to the parenting struggles

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And I listened to their call for help

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And sometimes that was 
just paused

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as all I could was hold hand
with them and just join them

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in silence crying and prayer

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So they told me about their struggles

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They told me about the rough, 
harsh refugee camp condition

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That made it hard to focus on 
anything but practical chores

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like collecting clean water

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He told me how they watch their 
children withdraw

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the sadness, depression, anger
bed-wetting, thumb sucking

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fear of loud noises, fear of nightmares,
terrifying terrifying nightmares.

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These families had been through
what we had been watching on the TV.

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The mothers almost half of them were
now wisdom of the war

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or didn't even know their husbands
were dead or alive,

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described how they thought they
were coping so badly

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They watched their children change

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and they have had no idea 
how to help them.

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They didn't know how to answer
their children's questions.

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Why I found incredibly 
astonishing and so motivational

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was that these families was so 
motivated to support their children

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Despite all the challenges they faced

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they were trying to help their children

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they were making attempts at seeking
support from NGO workers

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from refugee camp teachers,
professional medics, other parents.

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One mother I met had only been 
account for 4 days

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and had already made two attempts
at seeking support

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for her eight -year-old daughter


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who was having terrifying nightmares.

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But sadly, these attempts are 
almost always useless.

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Refugee camp doctors when available 
are almost always too busy or

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don't have the knowledge all
the time for basic parenting supports.

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Refugee camp teachers and other 
parents I just like them

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part of a new refugee community
who's struggling with units

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So then we began to think
how could we help these families.

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The families were struggling with things
much bigger than they could cope with.

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The Syrian crisis made it clear how
incredibly impossible it would be

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to reach families on an individual level.

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How else could we help them.

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How would we reach families
at a population level and low-cost

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in these terrifying terrifying times.

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After hours of speaking to NGO workers

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one suggested a fantastic innovative
idea of distributing

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parenting information leaflets 
by a bread wrappers.

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Bread wrappers that were delivered
to a family

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in a conflict zone in Syria
by humanitarian workers

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So that's what we did

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The bread wrappers haven't changed
at all in their apperance

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except for the addition of two pieces
of paper.

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One was a parenting information leaflet
that had basic advice

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and information that normalizes
the parents

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what they might be experiencing


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and what their children 
might be experiencing

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and information on how they 
could support themselves

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and their children

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such as information like spending time
talking to their child

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showing the more affection
being more patient with your child

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talking to your children.

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The other piece of paper 
was a feedback question

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and of course there was a pen.

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So is this simply leaflet distribution

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or is it actually possible means of
delivering psychological first aid

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that provides warm secure

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loving parenting

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We managed to distribute 3000 of these
in just one week

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was incredible was we had 
60-percent response rate

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SIxty-percent of the three thousand
families responded.

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I don't know how many reasearchs
we have here today

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but that kind of response rate
is fantastic

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to have this in Manchester
would be a huge achivement

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Let alone in conflict zone in Syria

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really highlighting how important
these kind of messages word to families.

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We ain't remember how 
excited

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and eager we were
for the return of question is

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the families had left hundreds 
of messages

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most incredibly positive encouraging.

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My favorite has got to be

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"Thank you for not forgetting about us
and our children".

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This is really illustrates a potential 
means of the delivery of psychological

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first data families and the return of 
feedback to

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Just imagine replicating this using
other means

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such as baby look distribution

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or female hygiene kits 
or even food baskets

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Let's bring this closer to home

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because the refugee crisis is one


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having an effect on every single one of us

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We're bombarded with images 
daily of statistics

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and photos

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and that's not surprising

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because by last month

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over 1 million refugees 
had reached europe

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1 million refugees are joining
our communities

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They're becoming our neighbors

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their children are attending our 
children schools

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So we've adapted the leaflets to 
meet the needs of European refugees

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and we have them online open access

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and areas with a really high 
refugee influx.

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For example, the Swedish healthcare
uploaded it

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onto their website

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within the first 45 mintutes

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it was downloaded 343 times

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really highlighting how important it is
for volunteers

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practitioners and other parents 
to have open

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access psychological first aid messages.

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In 2013, I was sitting on the cold 
harsh floor of a refugee camp tent

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with mother sitting around me as
I was conducting a focus group

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across from East, an elderly lady

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with what seemed to be a 13-year-old
girl lying beside her,

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with her head on the other ladies knees.

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The girls stayed quiet throughout
the focus group not talking at all

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with her knees curled up 
against her chest.

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Towards the end of the focus group

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and as I was thanking the mothers
for their time

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the other lady looked at me while
pointing at the young girl

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and said to me:" Can you help us with?"

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not quite sure what she expected
me to do

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I looked at the young girl and smiled,
in Arabic I said

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(Arabic)

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"What is your name?"

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She looked at me really confused 
and engaged

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but then said:"Halluan"

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Halluan is the best name for
the Arabic female name Halla

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and is only really used to refer
to really young girls.

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At that point, I realized that actually
Hallo was probably much

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older than thirteen, it turns out Halla 
was a 25-year-old mother

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to three young children