Noting the dearth of robust tools for assessing SEL skills in low-resource and crisis settings, authors Nikhit D’Sa and Allyson Krupar developed a cost-free, open-source measure of self-concept, stress management, perseverance, empathy, and conflict resolution. The measure showed reliability and strong internal consistency in a validation study among 620 Syrian children living in Iraq.

Authors Ha Yeon Kim, Kalina Gjicali, Zezhen Wu, and Carly Tubbs Dolan report on the psychometric soundness of TOOLSEL, an instrument for teachers to use to assess students’ social, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive competencies. They share lessons for its use in the field, based on their experience validating it among 3,361 Syrian refugee youth living in Lebanon.

Authors Fernanda Soares, Nina Menezes Cunha, and Paul Frisoli discuss how they created a new tool for measuring teachers’ emotion regulation, perceived stress, emotional exhaustion, and self-efficacy and adapted it to the Salvadoran context. A psychometric factor analysis of data from a sample of 1,659 teachers indicate evidence of the tool’s validity.

Taking a family systems approach, authors Raija-Leena Punamäki, Kirsi Peltonen, Marwan Diab, and Samir R Qouta find that child-parent attachment, parenting styles, and sibling relationships may mediate the perceived benefit of a group therapy program among a sample of children from 325 Palestinian families. They base their findings on family-type data and self-reported PTSD and mental health data.

Authors Shanna Kohn, Kim Foulds, Charlotte Cole, Mackenzie Matthews, and Laila Hussein argue for the need to take a participatory, trauma-informed approach to creating SEL educational media for children affected by the Syrian refugee crisis. They reflect on the collaborative research and consultations that led to Sesame’s Ahlan Simsim production and associated direct support services.

In developing and testing a new instrument, Sergiy Bogdanov and his coauthors offer evidence suggesting that family support, optimism, persistence, health, and social networking are key local concepts for understanding resilience among youth in Eastern Ukraine who experienced the adverse effects of armed conflict.

Arguing the practicality of group-based psychotherapy approaches for humanitarian settings, authors Gloria A. Pedersen, Manaswi Sangraula, Pragya Shrestha, Pooja Lakshmin, Alison Schafer, Renasha Ghimire, Nagendra P. Luitel, Mark J. D. Jordans, and Brandon A. Kohrt describe GroupACT, an observational tool for assessing facilitators’ capacity to provide effective and safe group sessions.