<b>How Much Does It Cost to Impact the Social and Emotional Development of Young Children in Humanitarian Contexts? Evidence from a Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial in Haiti</b>

<p dir="ltr">Haiti consistently experiences humanitarian crises due to governmental instability, gang activity, and natural disasters. This fragility impacts children’s learning and development. Children who experience early adversity can display remarkable psychosocial resilience when provided opportunities for social and emotional learning (SEL). Yet, there are limited examples of how to undertake early childhood SEL programming in humanitarian contexts and the related costs. We developed an SEL intervention for pre-primary teachers: morning meeting curriculum and read-alouds to include SEL themes, songs, stories, and activities. Sixty preschools were randomly selected and assigned to either an intervention or control condition. At pretest, we assessed 881 children using the International Development and Early Learning Assessment (48% female, 5.4 years <i>x̅</i>), following up with 91% at post-test. The 4.5-month intervention had a positive and statistically significant impact (effect size = 0.23) on the social and emotional skills of children. However, the intervention did not affect the growth in literacy, numeracy, or motor functioning. We estimate the intervention cost USD 96 per child. Moving the needle on young children’s social and emotional skills in humanitarian contexts is possible but expensive.</p>