Field Note: Data Stewardship and Trauma-Informed Care in Online Professional Development for Afghan Adult Learners: Lessons from Practice

Abstract

As education in emergencies (EiE) programming relies increasingly on digital and remote modalities, ethical data practices have become a critical but underexamined source of risk. In highly surveilled and politically restrictive contexts, routine educational data collection, such as enrollment records, learning management systems, and monitoring tools, can expose learners to social, legal, or security dangers. In this field note, we reflect on the implementation of an online professional development program for adult learners residing in Afghanistan following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. This context was marked by restricted access to education, heightened surveillance, and gender-based exclusion. Drawing from the experience of practitioners, we argue that ethical data stewardship must be treated as a core dimension of program design, rather than as a downstream compliance activity. Using a trauma-informed lens, we examine how decisions about the minimization of data, including consent, access, and use, have shaped recruitment, instruction, monitoring, and evaluation across the program lifecycle. We highlight practical adaptations made to reduce risk while meeting accountability and learning needs, along with the tensions that emerged between the generations of evidence and protection of participants. By documenting how trauma-informed principles were operationalized through concrete data practices, this field note offers practice-based insights for EiE practitioners designing digital education programs in contexts of chronic surveillance and political repression.