Providing mental health support
The lives of refugee and other newcomer children are often upended by organized violence and forced displacement. They need to restore their sense of emotional and physical safety and security, increase their self-confidence and positive coping skills, and rebuild their ability to trust.
Helping children overcome highly stressful experiences involves two main areas of focus:
-
Enhancing the factors that promote children's mental health and well-being.
-
Providing appropriate help to those children who are experiencing severe mental health problems and illnesses to ensure a full recovery.
(Fazel & Stein, 2002)
School-based interventions
A positive school environment and support from peers can be protective factors for newcomer children (Ontario Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health, 2015). Schools offer an effective framework for enhancing resilient behaviours and promoting child and youth mental health, and play an essential role in supporting children's mental health (Fazel & Stein, 2002).
For example, schools:
-
Provide a place to learn and play
-
Enhance resilient behaviours
-
Facilitate social adaptation and peer relationships
-
Provide a sense of identity
To meet the psychosocial needs of refugee children, programs should promote the expression of feelings, provide individual support and increase children's understanding of their past experiences (Rousseau & Guzder, 2008). Schools also play a key role by serving both as mediators in helping children and youth adapt to their host country and as the main access point to prevention and treatment services for mental health problems and illnesses (Rousseau & Guzder, 2008).
Schools are well-positioned to provide mental health services for refugee children with emotional and behavioural problems. Countries with high proportions of immigrant and refugee children, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, effectively deliver secondary prevention group programs that aim to improve children's social and academic development, reduce stress and improve well-being. Such programs seem to be well-accepted among refugee parents (Rousseau & Guzder, 2008).
Video: What schools can do before referring child or youth newcomers to specialized mental health services
With Dr. Debra Stein (Psychiatrist, SickKids Centre for Community Mental Health)
First of all, it's really important for educators to keep in mind the adage: good for all, essential for some. Studies show that newcomer children and youth have healthier adjustments when they have a strong sense of connectedness and belonging to the schools they attend. Conversely, experiences of alienation and discrimination and exclusion can lead to poor adjustments. This is why it's very important for teachers to foster a sense of belonging to their classrooms and their schools. It can be really helpful for teachers to learn a little bit about the countries that their students come from and incorporate this information into classroom activities and routines. It can be very helpful to ask the children themselves to become experts in their own origins and cultural backgrounds. And, just the sheer fact of celebrating these differences in the classroom can go a long way in fostering that sense of belonging. Similarly, it's really important for teachers to focus on each individual strength that a child brings to the classroom. Some children may have a high value for education, for example, or have very well-developed social skills or conflict resolution skills. Others may bring an interest in maths or an affinity for the arts to the classroom. What teachers should think about is cultivating and fostering a sense of safety in the classroom through the provision of a very predictable environment with very clear-cut rules. A really necessary step in ensuring an environment of belonging for the students is to also take steps to address discrimination and promote tolerance for other students. This may also involve teaching basic conflict resolution skills within the classroom.