Free Resources to Support Students Affected by Forced Migration

Joy Kim,
International Rescue Committee, Program Officer for Education Promotion and Impact

Right now, students across New Jersey are sitting in your classrooms, your tutoring sessions, and your student support meetings while carrying the weight of displacement, trauma, and resettlement — on top of learning a new language and a new school system.  You don’t have to navigate this alone, and you don’t have to build the tools from scratch. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), in collaboration with the New Jersey Office for Refugees and with support from AmeriCorps Volunteer Generation Fund (VGF), has developed a set of free, ready-to-use resources to help educators, tutors, and program staff meet students where they are. Here’s how you can start using these resources today!

Teaching or supporting K-12 students? Head to Kaya Connect and enroll in Toxic Stress and Well-Being Among Students Affected by Forced Migration to understand how chronic stress shows up in the classroom and how educators can respond, and Well-Being for Educators of Students Affected by Forced Migration: Introduction to Mindfulness to protect your own capacity to show up for students and learn techniques to improve your well-being through mindfulness. Pair those with Healing Classrooms for Students Affected by Forced Migration: Classroom Management for strategies strengthening your classroom management and building safe, trauma-informed learning environments. Welcoming an Afghan family this year? Enroll in the Rutgers GSE e-course, Welcoming Afghan Families to School, where you’ll learn trauma-informed, culturally appropriate strategies for supporting Afghan students and families shared by New Jersey school teachers and experienced practitioners. Each course comes with a certificate of completion and counts towards your required PD hours.

Lesson 8 on Healing Classroom Strategies: Strengthening Relationships

Running or supporting a tutoring program? Equip your tutors before their next session with Tutor Training: Foundations of Tutoring Forcibly Displaced Youth, an engaging, self-paced e-course that prepares tutors to effectively support MLLs, students affected by forced migration, and other newcomers. Have your tutors enroll, complete the course, and send you their certificate—it’s that simple. The course pairs with a Tutor Handbook outlining core principles, strategies, and tools tutors can keep referring back to after completing the e-course.

Supporting immigrant families navigating NJ schools? The Student Rights & Advocacy Toolkit is for anyone helping students enroll in and access the education they’re entitled to — whether you’re a community advocate, legal aid provider, parent liaison, school staff member, volunteer, or organizational partner. The Toolkit addresses common enrollment barriers and offers practical, ready-to-use tools for your work on the ground. It includes a main toolkit, a School Enrollment Checklist, and a School Enrollment Advocacy Compendium.

Engage and share! These resources are completely free, available now, and built specifically for the work you’re already doing in New Jersey. Take the courses and post your certificate online. Share them with a colleague. Build them into your next training. You show up for these students every day—we hope these resources make it a little easier.

Questions about these resources or want help putting them into practice? Reach out to the IRC’s Education & Youth team at RAIEducation.Youth@rescue.org.