The efficacy and social validity of a group cognitive behavioural therapy for young migrants from war-affected countries

The “Teaching Recovery Techniques” (Smith et al., 2000) is a group-based cognitive-behavioural therapy. It was developed for survivors of war or conflicts aged 8 years or older. In brief, the Teaching Recovery Techniques is a psycho-social-education intervention, aimed at educating children about their symptoms and teaching adaptive coping strategies which include creating self-coping statements, relaxation, and exposure strategies. The program was designed to prevent worsening of early symptoms rather than to treat severe clinical diagnoses. The intervention manual and workbook can be found at Children and War website (www.childrenandwar.org). Participants in the intervention groups will receive the manualised intervention while those in the control groups will not receive any intervention until the end of the trial. The intervention will be run for one hour a week for a total of 8 weeks and facilitated by two trained facilitators.Control groups will be offered the same intervention at the end of trial for ethical reason.