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 Researchers followed 43 new arrivals for two to three years and
found that kids with at least four so-called protective factors,
like a two-parent household, financial security and proximity to
their own ethnic community, had better social and emotional
wellbeing than refugee children with less support.
Previous research has found refugee children can be highly resilient
and adjust well to their new homes, the authors note in the Archives
of Disease in Childhood.
“This is very important for us to know as it enables host countries
to actively address these factors in order to optimize health and
wellbeing in refugee children,” said lead study author Dr. Karen Zwi
of the University of New South Wales and Sydney Children’s Hospitals
Network.
To foster a more supportive environment for child refugees, host
countries might, for example, provide families with housing and
financial assistance, help parents find jobs and assist schools in
creating supportive environments with sports clubs, homework help
and language assistance, Zwi said by email.
“For those more vulnerable children who have fewer protective
factors, or are at higher risk for poor social-emotional outcomes,
we can provide preventive and proactive support to try to buffer
them or protect them to make their outcomes as good as they can be,”
Zwi added.
“In the long run, better social-emotional wellbeing is likely to
predict improved adult productivity, educational level and overall
capacity to give back to the host country,” Zwi said.
For the study, researchers examined data collected on refugee
children two and three years after their arrival in Australia
between 2009 and 2011. At the start of the study, kids ranged in age
from 4 to 17 years old.
After children had been in the country for two years, researchers
asked their parents to complete questionnaires designed to assess
social and emotional wellbeing and the risk of stress-related
illness. Parents were asked to do the same questionnaires again a
year later.
Among the children for whom there was data from both questionnaires,
all of the kids with at least six protective factors had similar or
better results in the second social and emotional wellbeing
assessments compared to the first time around.
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In contrast, for roughly two-thirds of the kids with only one
protective factor wellbeing had deteriorated by the time of the
second assessment.
The protective factors that seemed to have the biggest impact on
improved wellbeing scores were having a father present when kids
arrived in the country, coming from Africa, having relatives in
Australia prior to arrival and proximity to their own ethnic
community, the study found.
One limitation of the study, however, is that only 39 kids had
complete questionnaires at two years and just 38 kids had complete
questionnaires after three years. In addition, researchers only had
data on protective factors for 31 kids at year two and 33 children
at year three.
Even so, the findings highlight the importance of post-immigration
factors in shaping how well refugee children adjust to their new
country, said Dr. Hamish Graham, a researcher at the Center for
International Child Health at the University of Melbourne.
“Other studies have also found that parental psychological wellbeing
and family functioning are among the most significant predictors of
child health and wellbeing, and this has certainly been my
experience working with refugee children and families,” Graham, who
wasn’t involved in the study, said by email.
“Refugee families commonly experience ongoing stress due to
financial hardship, housing, making social connections, and
navigating new school, health and social service systems,” Graham
added. “As a society, we should view support for families through
these challenges as an important investment in their social and
emotional wellbeing.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2tjDXb0 Archives of Disease in Childhood,
online July 11, 2017.
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