Supporting Those Who Support Others

Aim. This study examines how educators working with children of forced migrants navigate their professional roles within a context of chronic precarity, legal uncertainty, and socio-political exclusion. Concept. Drawing on a phenomenological design and in-depth interviews with 11 educators in southern Tel Aviv, Israel, the analysis traces educators’ lived experiences as they contend with unfamiliar cultural norms, emotional exposure, and institutional constraints to their ability to help. Results. Findings show that educators experience an initial rupture in professional confidence when encountering sustained Otherness. Over time, they develop distinct yet fluid coping trajectories: Protective hardening, structural fatigue and burnout, acceptance of chronic temporariness, and, for some, relational identification characterised by forms of becoming-with children and families. Rather than emerging as individual capacities or deficits, these coping trajectories are shaped by educators’ moral commitments and by the absence of formal, theory-informed support systems. Attending to educators' lived experiences is essential for understanding how inclusion, equity, and belonging are enacted in practice. Originality. The study demonstrates that truly supporting those who support others requires more than acknowledging educators' dedication; it demands systemic transformation. Recognising and supporting educators' ethical, emotional, and relational labour is fundamental to building educational systems capable of sustaining both those who teach and those who are taught, and for advancing more just and humane responses to forced migration within and beyond educational settings.

educator burnout · Emotional labor · Forced migration · inclusion and belonging · institutional constraints · legal uncertainty · moral commitment · otherness · Precarity · professional confidence · relational identification · Tel aviv · Education and experiences of immigrants and refugees · Immigration and Intercultural Education · Migration, Health and Trauma