Resilience

Protection and recovery for children exposed to violence

What Resilience is

Resilience is himaya’s specialized protection and recovery service for children who have experienced or been exposed to sexual, physical, or psychological abuse, neglect, exploitation, or severe emotional distress.

Through an integrated team of social workers and psychologists, Resilience provides trauma-informed, child-centered intervention that addresses both the child’s protection and psychosocial needs. The service supports children not only to be safe from further harm, but also to process their experiences, restore emotional stability, strengthen coping capacities, and rebuild trust and relationships.

Operating under Lebanese Law No. 422/2002 on the protection of children at risk, Resilience provides confidential, child-centered protection and psychosocial support to children and their families, ensuring safety, care, and recovery while activating legal protection when required.

Resilience brings together protection case management and specialized psychological support, allowing each child’s intervention to be adapted to their age, developmental stage, experiences of violence, emotional needs, family context, and level of risk.

Who Resilience supports

Resilience supports children and adolescents who have been exposed to violence or harm, as well as children experiencing trauma, fear, or psychological distress. The service also works with parents and caregivers seeking support to protect and care for a child.

The service is particularly adapted to children whose experiences of violence may have affected their sense of safety, emotional regulation, relationships, trust, self-esteem, or ability to function in their daily lives.

Social workers and psychologists work collaboratively to understand the child’s experience within their broader family and social environment, while ensuring that the child’s voice, needs, and best interests remain at the center of intervention.

In complex or high-risk situations, Resilience intervenes in coordination with national and international protection systems, including cross-border cases referred through international protection networks.

This includes cases requiring multidisciplinary coordination, specialized protection measures, family interventions, or cross-border case management.

How Resilience supports children and families

Confidential reporting and safe assessment

All reports received by himaya are treated with strict confidentiality. Each case begins with a careful assessment to understand the child’s situation, risks, and needs, while prioritizing safety, dignity, and the best interest of the child. Information is shared only when necessary and in line with Law No. 422/2002.

The assessment goes beyond identifying immediate protection risks. Social workers and psychologists seek to understand how the child has been affected by the experience of violence, including emotional, behavioral, relational, developmental, and psychological impacts.

A trauma-informed approach means that children are not defined by what happened to them. Their reactions are understood as possible responses to experiences of violence, loss, fear, or prolonged stress, and intervention is adapted accordingly.

Support for the child

Resilience provides children with a safe and supportive space where they are listened to, believed, and respected. Through tailored psychosocial support, children are helped to regain a sense of safety, cope with distress, and rebuild emotional stability and resilience over time.

Psychologists provide specialized psychological interventions adapted to the child’s age, developmental needs, trauma history, and psychological presentation. Intervention may focus on emotional regulation, coping with traumatic experiences, anxiety and distress, self-esteem, relationships, grief and loss, and the restoration of a sense of safety and continuity.

Social workers provide specialized protection case management, helping the child and family navigate protection risks, access appropriate services, strengthen safety and support networks, and develop individualized protection and recovery plans.

Together, social workers and psychologists ensure that protection and psychological recovery are not addressed separately, but as interconnected dimensions of the child’s wellbeing.

The goal is not simply to help children “cope” with what happened. It is to support them in recovering a sense of agency, safety, connection, and hope, while reducing the risk of further harm.

Working with parents and caregivers

Resilience works in partnership with parents and caregivers whenever this is in the child’s best interest. Families receive guidance and psychosocial support to better understand their child’s emotional and protection needs, strengthen protective caregiving practices, and restore stability and trust within the home. Parents are supported, not blamed, throughout the protection and recovery process.

Because recovery takes place within relationships, Resilience considers the caregiving environment an essential part of the intervention. Social workers and psychologists support caregivers in understanding trauma-related reactions and in responding to children with greater safety, consistency, sensitivity, and emotional availability.

Caregivers are supported to strengthen their protective capacity, rebuild trust, establish predictable routines, and create an environment in which children can gradually regain a sense of security and belonging.

When appropriate, interventions also address family relationships and patterns that may have been affected by the child’s experience of violence.

When protection requires legal action

In situations where a child’s safety is at serious risk, Resilience coordinates with juvenile courts and public prosecution authorities to activate judicial protection measures under Law No. 422/2002. Legal action is pursued only when necessary and always guided by the best interest of the child, while psychosocial support continues alongside legal procedures.

Resilience recognizes that legal protection and psychological recovery can be demanding experiences for children and families. Social workers therefore accompany children and caregivers throughout protection procedures, while psychologists continue to provide appropriate psychosocial and psychological support.

Where judicial intervention is required, the service seeks to minimize additional distress and avoid practices that may contribute to re-traumatization, while ensuring that the child’s safety and rights remain protected.

What makes Resilience different

Specialized intervention for children affected by violence

Resilience combines specialized child protection case management with trauma-informed psychological care. This integrated approach recognizes that exposure to violence can affect every dimension of a child’s life—safety, emotional wellbeing, development, relationships, family functioning, and participation in everyday life.

Each child receives an individualized intervention based on their protection risks, psychological needs, developmental stage, family circumstances, strengths, and available support systems.

Our social workers and psychologists work together to ensure continuity between protection, psychosocial support, family intervention, and recovery.

At the heart of Resilience is the belief that children who have experienced violence need more than protection from immediate harm. They need relationships and interventions that help restore safety, agency, trust, emotional stability, and the possibility of recovery.

Reach out

If you are concerned about a child who may have experienced violence, abuse, neglect, exploitation, or severe emotional distress, you can reach out to himaya’s Resilience service.

Our team will listen, assess the situation confidentially, and help determine the most appropriate protection and support pathway for the child and family.

→ Report a case

→ Contact the Resilience Team

Email: resilience@himaya.org