Child Adolescent And Family Refugee Mental Health

More than half of the 25.9 million refugees in the world are under the age of 18 and the mental health of these children and adolescents constitutes a growing global public health priority. Refugee children and their families are at increased risk to develop mental health problems, but they often face major challenges in accessing adequate treatment and mental health professionals frequently feel ill-equipped to assist this group. Refugees are faced with a plethora of issues including the ambiguous loss of loved ones, psychological trauma related to past experiences of violence and atrocities, the complexities of daily life as a refugee, and the challenges to adapt to new systems of care and support. Refugees’ life circumstances all too often undermine their agency, asthey face discrimination, stigma, and social isolation or exclusion. Refugees are frequently disconnected from the usual family and community supports that they once had, which creates additional mental distress. As parents struggle with these changes, their children often find it even more difficult to adapt and connect with them. This all leads to increased prevalence of mental health conditions among refugees. Humanitarian policies recommend family-centered interventions that are multi-sectoral,multi-disciplinary, and focus on optimizing resource utilization. Over the last decade, a considerable body of research has emerged around socio-ecological models of mental health, family and community approaches, and resilience and strengths-based theories, but these insights are insufficiently incorporated in the practice of mental health care for refugee children. Clinicians often struggle to grasp the common unique stressors that families face and are not familiar with working with families as units for intervention. Using culturally and contextually informed assessment methods and family-oriented management approaches not only help individual children or adolescents, but also their families. This book aims to provide an overview of the latest theoretical insights from research on sociocultural aspects of mental health and connect these with clinical insights from practical mental health care provision. Using strengths-based, resiliency-oriented and family-centered approaches can enrich clinical practice in refugee mental health, but clinicians need to translate the emerging evidence into concrete steps and interventions. This requires additional skills for the assessment and management of mental health conditions in refugee children and families. The chapters in this book are written by a diverse group of authors using global, multi-disciplinary approaches. The chapters provide examples from various contexts including refugees who are displaced to neighboring countries, refugees ‘on the move’, and refugees and asylum seekers in resettlement settings. This book is therefore a unique resource for clinicians, researchers and policy makers working on mental health issues of refugee children and adolescents around the world.

Addresses the problems of offering mental health services to the families and children of immigrants.

This book provides a framework to guide mental health providers who work with refugees and immigrants. Nearly 70 million people today are refugees or forcibly-displaced migrants. More than half of them are children suffering from the effects of dislocation and violence. The authors describe the unique needs and challenges of serving these populations, and offer concrete steps for providing evidence-based, culturally-responsive care. Using the socioecological model, the authors conceptualize the developing child as living within concentric circles that include family, school, neighborhood, and society, embedded within a cultural context. Mental health providers identify and provide targeted support to combat disruptions within any or all of these ecological layers. Chapters examine the complex ways in which culture impacts the refugee experience, barriers to engagement in mental health practice and strategies for overcoming them, assessment, collaborative and integrated mental health interventions, and efforts to increase resilience in children, families, and communities. The book is an essential guide for mental health providers, and all who seek to help children in need.

Rapidly changing demographics in the United States over the past few years have resulted in a "majority of minority" youth. This has far-reaching implications for mental health clinicians, for whom knowledge of cultural context is critically important to understanding their patients and rendering effective, compassionate treatment. In addition to addressing cultural context, the book addresses the emerging crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and the significance of the movement for social justice.

This is a practical book for any health professional working with refugee children and families in various settings, from the initial humanitarian crisis, through displacement, living in camps, transfer between countries, settling in host countries, to return to the country of origin. Providing a holistic and intergenerational perspective, topics include the psychological impact, growth and nutrition, the management of chronic illness and infectious diseases, as well as the health of girls, pregnant women and mothers. Finally social issues such as education and the development of a healthy future generation are addressed. Child Refugee and Migrant Health is a hands-on resource for anyone who cares for children, assessing and addressing their health and psychological needs, in the best way possible, with the available resources, in any setting. There is a strong focus not just on caring for refugee and migrant children in crisis situations, but also on their families, long term physical and mental health.

This important new book explores how to support refugee family relationships in promoting post-trauma recovery and adaptation in exile.

Child and Youth Mental Health in Canada is the first book to cover child and adolescent mental health from a practical, settings-based approach. Rather than focusing on disorder etiology or diagnostic criteria, the cases in this book emphasize how mental health concerns manifest themselves in a variety of service contexts. Each chapter, contributed by a practitioner in the human services, provides an overview of the setting to create the context for practice. The contributors present appropriate interventions and activities for that setting, including interventions specific to the unique needs of refugee, indigenous, and LGBTQ children and youth. Covering trauma-based behaviours and attachment difficulties, practitioner wellness, residential care, in-patient care, school settings, family homes, recreational settings, secured programs, and juvenile justice, this collection will help to prepare future front-line professionals to effectively provide mental health support across milieus. This book is suitable for undergraduate child and adolescent mental health courses in child and youth care, psychology, child and family studies, and social work.