Building community resilience: Development and validation of a school-based framework for post-disaster child mental health support

Disasters significantly impact children's mental health, yet professional services remain severely limited in disaster-affected areas. Non-professional (non-specialist) psychosocial interventions delivered by teachers show promise, but systematic evidence on implementation requirements and effectiveness remains limited. In this study, we carry out implementation-focused systematic evidence synthesis to examine non-professional psychosocial interventions for disaster-affected children, and develop a comprehensive implementation framework for school-based settings. We conducted systematic evidence synthesis across PubMed, Scopus, and PsycINFO (2000-2024). Seven studies encompassing 7,134 children (ages 8–17 years) met inclusion criteria. Teachers were primary implementers (85.7%). Non-professional interventions demonstrated sustained improvements in adaptive functioning maintained for three years, whereas symptom improvements showed shorter duration. These sustained advantages likely resulted from teachers' ongoing presence enabling continued skill reinforcement through established relationships—mechanisms unavailable in time-limited professional interventions. Successful implementation required structured training (12–20 h), ongoing professional supervision, and systematic cultural adaptation. The consistent 12–20 h training requirement marks a practical threshold where teachers acquire core competencies (psychological first aid, trauma response, group facilitation) without extensive clinical education, while supervision ensures quality. Implementation barriers included educational system constraints (rigid curricula, teacher workload), resource limitations (insufficient professional backup, inadequate materials), and cultural adaptation challenges. As a central outcome of this synthesis, we developed the School-Based Community Resilience Implementation Model (SB-CRIM), a comprehensive evidence-based framework for integrating psychosocial support into educational systems and disaster preparedness planning while addressing the identified implementation barriers.