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.

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.

Immigrant Medicine is the first comprehensive guide to caring for immigrant and refugee patient populations. Edited by two of the best-known contributors to the growing canon of information about immigrant medicine, and written by a geographically diverse collection of experts, this book synthesizes the most practical and clinically relevant information and presents it in an easy-to-access format. An invaluable resource for front-line clinicians and other healthcare professionals, public health officials, and policy makers, Immigrant Medicine is destined to become the benchmark reference in this emerging field. Features expert guidance on data collection, legal, interpretive and social adjustment issues, as well as best practices in caring for immigrants to help you confidently manage all aspects of immigrant medicine. Includes detailed discussions on major depression, post traumatic stress disorder, and issues related to torture so you can effectively diagnose and treat common psychiatric issues. Covers international and new-arrival screening and immunizations offering you invaluable advice. Presents a templated diseases/disorders section with discussions on tuberculosis, hepatitis B, and common parasites that helps you easily manage the diseases and syndromes you are likely to encounter. Provides boxed features and tables, differential diagnoses, and treatment algorithms to help you absorb information at a glance.

The number of refugee youth worldwide receives international attention and is a top priority in both academic and political agendas. This article adopts a critical eye in summarizing current epidemiological knowledge of refugee youth mental health as well as interventions aimed to prevent or reduce mental health problems among children and adolescents in both high- and low-to-middle-income countries. We highlight current challenges and limitations of extant literature and present potential opportunities and recommendations in refugee child psychiatric epidemiology and mental health services research for moving forward. In light of the mounting xenophobic sentiments we are presently witnessing across societies, we argue that, as a first step, all epidemiological and intervention research should advocate for social justice to guarantee the safety of and respect for the basic human rights of all refugee populations during their journey and resettlement. A constructive dialogue between scholars and policy makers is warranted.

This book is an in-depth practical guide for mental health practitioners working across diverse theoretical orientations to provide mental health services tailored to the needs of refugees.

The United States is known as a nation of immigrants. Over the years the composition of immigrants has significantly changed. From receiving immigrants from primarily Europe, the United States is now home to people from countries around the globe. One of the common challenges encountered by immigrant and refugee families and youth is to successfully resettle and integrate into the host country that is culturally different from their country of origin. Depending on the context of migration, families and youth oftentimes face additional challenges ranging from potential trauma prior to immigration, language, employment, education, healthcare accessibility, integration, discrimination, etc. This book focuses on different issues experienced by immigrant and refugee families and youth as well as programs implemented to serve these populations. These issues pertain to the individual at a personal level (attachment, trauma, bi-cultural self-efficacy, behavioral problems, and mental health), family (parenting, work-family conflict, problems such as domestic violence), community (risk factors such as racial discrimination and protective factors such as social capital) and policy (immigration policy and enforcement). Part I of the book focuses on immigrant and refugee families and Part II focuses on immigrant and refugee youth. By increasing our awareness of issues pertinent to immigrant and refugee families and youth, we can better provide culturally respectful and sensitive services and policy to this population at a time when they are navigating between their host culture and home culture in addition to dealing with challenges encountered in resettlement. The book is a significant new contribution to migration studies and social justice, and will be a great resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of social work, public policy, law and sociology. The chapters in this book were originally published in the Journal of Ethic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work.