Refugee Children Research Articles

The role of school functioning, physical activity, BMI, sex and age in building resilience among Ukrainian refugee children in Poland

The study aims to examine the relationship between school functioning, physical activity (PA), sex, Body Mass Index (BMI), age, and resilience in Ukrainian children who migrated to Poland due to the war. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 2022, focusing on 248 children aged 10–15 years. The findings suggest that school environment, including enjoyment of school and strong support from teachers, plays a significant role in building resilience in children. PA enhanced the resilience of girls, whereas a higher BMI negatively impacted it. A child-friendly school environment that encourages PA and provides social support could be a promising approach for the mental health of Ukrainian refugee children.

Two researchers’ journeys towards healing and safety doing community-engaged scholarship with immigrant and refugee populations

ABSTRACT In conducting qualitative research, scholars often grapple with positionality. Researcher positionality refers to how various social identities (i.e. gender, race, class, ethnicity, ability, geographical location) influence research methods. It examines the impact of researchers’ social identities on their understanding of the research design, question, context, process, and participants . Scholars of colour who research their own communities have added complexity in this research process, including having to address the question of being an insider-outsider. This duality sometimes has an emotional toll. Two community-centred researchers asked What is the emotional labor that goes into conducting research with our own communities? Gerardo Mancilla immigrated to the United States when he was seven years old. He was undocumented and grew up in the U.S. with this identity for more than 20 years. Phitsamay Uy came to the United States as a child refugee at the age of six. Her refugee identity influenced her understanding of U.S. schools. In this paper, the two scholars of colour share their methodology and experiences of becoming academics who study their own communities. They discuss commonalities in their shared stories: Being Accidental Academics, Utilising a Relational Approach, Developing Reciprocity with Our Communities, and Experiencing Radical Healing.

Maternal Trauma and Psychopathology Symptoms Affect Refugee Children's Mental Health But Not Their Emotion Processing.

Refugee children's development may be affected by their parents' war-related trauma exposure and psychopathology symptoms across a range of cognitive and affective domains, but the processes involved in this transmission are poorly understood. Here, we investigated the impact of refugee mothers' trauma exposure and mental health on their children's mental health and attention biases to emotional expressions. In our sample of 324 Syrian refugee mother-child dyads living in Jordan (children's Mage=6.32, SD = 1.18; 50% female), mothers reported on their symptoms of anxiety and depression, and on their children's internalising, externalising, and attention problems. A subset of mothers reported their trauma exposure (n = 133) and PTSD symptoms (n = 124). We examined emotion processing in the dyads using a standard dot-probe task measuring their attention allocation to facial expressions of anger and sadness. Maternal trauma and PTSD symptoms were linked to child internalising and attention problems, while maternal anxiety and depression symptoms were associated with child internalising, externalising, and attention problems. Mothers and children were hypervigilant towards expressions of anger, but surprisingly, mother and child biases were not correlated with each other. The attentional biases to emotional faces were also not linked to psychopathology risk in the dyads. Our findings highlight the importance of refugee mothers' trauma exposure and psychopathology on their children's wellbeing. The results also suggest a dissociation between the mechanisms underlying mental health and those involved in attention to emotional faces, and that intergenerational transmission of mental health problems might involve mechanisms other than attentional processes relating to emotional expressions.

Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Refugee Children Utilizing Healthcare Services of Türkiye (2021-2022): A Single-Centre Study

BACKGROUND: The number of refugees in the world is increasing due to ongoing wars, political instability, violence, poverty and climate change. Türkiye has the world’s largest refugee population and half of the refugees are children. The aim of this study is to describe healthcare utilization patterns of the pediatric refugee population admitted to emergency, outpatient and inpatient services to enable hospitals to be better prepared to treat large numbers of refugee children. METHODS: This was a retrospective observational study using data from medical records of refugee children who had visited the _University of Health Sciences Sancaktepe Training and Research Hospital_, Istanbul, in pediatric emergency, outpatient and inpatient services between 1 June 2021 and 1 June 2022. RESULTS: 4383 refugee children including emergency (81.9%), outpatient (15.1%) and inpatient clinics (3%) were analyzed. The most frequently seen diseases for each service were upper respiratory infection and gastroenteritis in emergency; vitamin D deficiency and malnutrition in outpatient; lower respiratory infection, fever and intoxication in inpatient services. Most of the visits were non-urgent visits. COVID-19 disease was found in 1.3% of all children. CONCLUSION: Up to now, there is little data available on the health status of these pediatric refugees. This study demonstrates that refugee children’s visits to the Emergency Department (ED) are an initial first step for accessing healthcare. Identifying the reasons for non-emergency ED use might provide additional insights and new approaches to help serve the healthcare needs of this vulnerable population.

Reflecting on the Present through the Past: Children's Displacement from Ukraine

Abstract: Friederike Kind Kovács and Anna Oksiutovych argue that the displacement of children is one of the major, but generally overlooked, consequences of the war in Ukraine. The authors find valuable insights in studying previous examples of children's forced displacement and migration to safe countries that help identify the possible long- and short-term consequences for the children who have left Ukraine following the Russia's invasion that began February 24, 2022. Specifically, the history of Hungarian children's displacement during and after World War I offers important parallels. Kind-Kovács and Oksiutovych identify two kinds of displacements—those that take place by families leaving for safe countries in anticipation of the crisis created by the war and children's forced displacement under Russian policies. In regard to the latter, the article examines the Russian government's possible motivations behind the forced abduction of 700,000 Ukrainian minors taken to Russia, actions that are contrary to international law. These abductions target the most vulnerable children, especially orphans and disabled children residing in institutions. The authors conducted oral histories with Ukrainian mothers who relocated with their children to safe countries, and their testimonies offers insights into the difficulties faced by these refugee children even in these "better" circumstances. The authors underscore the urgent need for comprehensive international measures to protect children's rights in conflict zones such as Ukraine, finding support for their conclusions in historical evidence.

Intersectional Barriers Faced by Urban Somali Refugee Girls in Uganda

Abstract We based this article on a qualitative study that focuses on barriers to the integration of Somali Muslim urban refugee girls in Uganda. We were interested in how different ethnic and gender identities influence Somali refugee girls’ access to education and participation in society. Based on 75 semi-structured interviews with refugee children between 10 and 16 years of age in Kampala, we used constant comparative analysis to explore the intersectional experiences of Somali refugee girls. We found that they face specific gender-based discrimination and temporal and spatial restraints. This plays a key role in their ability to integrate into society. We conclude that it is important to avoid homogenizing refugee children's experiences and to incorporate intersectional analysis in studying integration.

Facial emotion recognition in refugee children with a history of war trauma.

Over 36 million children are currently displaced due to war, yet we know little about how these experiences of war and displacement affect their socioemotional development-notably how they perceive facial expressions. Across three different experiments, we investigated the effects of war trauma exposure on facial emotion recognition in Syrian refugee (n = 130, Mage = 9.3 years, 63 female) and Jordanian nonrefugee children (n = 148, Mage = 9.4 years, 66 female) living in Jordan (data collected 2019-2020). Children in the two groups differed in trauma exposure, but not on any of our measures of mental health. In Experiment 1, we measured children's biases to perceive an emotion using morphed facial expressions and found no evidence that biases differed between refugees and nonrefugees. In Experiment 2, we adapted a novel perceptual scaling task that bypasses semantic knowledge, and again found no differences between the two group's discrimination of facial expressions. Finally, in Experiment 3, we recorded children's eye movements as they identified Middle Eastern actors' facial expressions, and again found no differences between the groups in either their identification accuracies or scanning strategies. Taken together, our results suggest that exposure to war-related trauma and displacement during early development, when reported by the caregiver but not always recollected by the child, does not appear to alter emotion recognition of facial expressions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Magnitude of Active Trachoma Among Host and Refugee Children in Gambella Regional State, Ethiopia.

Trachoma is a serious public health concern and cause of blindness globally. Despite its vulnerability to all ages, children are more vulnerable to its adverse outcomes and devastating complications. This study assessed the magnitude of trachoma among children in host and refugee communities in Gambella, Ethiopia. A community-based comparative survey was done among 743 participants. Multistage sampling technique was used to select participants. Selected children were examined for trachoma using a 2.5x binocular loupe and graded using the World Health Organization (WHO) simplified grading system. A standardized, structured, and pretested tool was used to collect the data. Data were collected through interviews and observation. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were done to identify the associated factors. Variable with a p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. The magnitude of active trachoma was 119 (16.5%; 95% CI: 13.5, 21.4) with 36 (14.5%; 95% CI: 11.9, 18.8) and 83 (17.5%; 95% CI: 14.3, 22.7) from refugees and host communities, respectively. Poor knowledge of caregiver about trachoma [AOR = 3.55, 95% CI: (1.48, 8.85)], presence of human feces near the house [AOR = 4.57, 95% CI: (1.84, 11.34)], presence of garbage near the house [AOR = 4.07, 95% CI: (1.34, 12.36)], and the presence of flies on the face of the child [AOR = 3.42, 95% CI: (1.32, 8.84)] were significantly associated factors with active trachoma. Overall, one-sixth of children had experienced active trachoma. The magnitude of trachoma was higher in the host community compared to the refugees. Proper waste disposal and personal hygiene measures are important measures that should be addressed to tackle the problem.

Missed Lessons from The Holocaust: Avoiding Complexities and Darker Aspects of Jewish Child Survivors' Life Experiences

Abstract: Joanna Beata Michlic sees how much of the attention to child survivor histories can be traced to the experiences of Jewish children after the Holocaust. She criticizes the continuing attempts to draw a narrative of redemption and renewal from this history—and its uses as a paradigm—as simplistic and harmful. Instead, Michlic argues it is important to understand the many vulnerabilities of child survivors, not simply celebrate their success. Accepting the complexities and painful truths pertaining to the Jewish child survivors' biographies uncovers valuable lessons that may be applied to policies directed at today's vulnerable child refugees. Fully examining the experience of young Jewish refugees recognizes that reaching a peaceful Western country to start life anew did not mean that the children instantly transformed themselves into happy individuals. Michlic argues that the multiple scars incurred by war, loss, separation, and the imperative to adapt to a new life are not simply left behind. In the case of Jewish child survivors, these wounds lingered, shaping their identities and memories throughout their lives. It is essential to listen to child survivors' testimonies about the emotional price of losing their families and communities. Invoking the past to understand the present includes being willing to accept history's uneasy, painful, and complex personal realities.

Parental uncertainty in plans and education of ukrainian refugee children in European countries: a pilot study introduction

The aim of this article is to better understand parents' decisions regarding their children's education in the face of uncertainty in plans. The focus of this paper is twofold. First, the author shows how, even with sufficiently favorable mechanisms for integration into the host society, immediate protection status, and substantial material support, uncertainty affect the experience of refugee parents with temporary protection status. The author also wants to show how, at a time of the greatest uncertainty in the plans of refugee parents, distance education makes its own special and distinct contribution to the educational strategy. The survey was completely anonymous, with 160 respondents, 65 of whom currently reside in Germany, 61 in Poland as well as 34 in the UK. The pilot study involved parents from three countries – Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom. These are the countries that have received the most significant number of Ukrainian refugees. It was concluded that the desire to complete all possible strategies in the education of their children is highest among those who are in a state of greatest uncertainty. Such parents tend to continue educating their children remotely in Ukraine and in local schools in parallel. This strategy creates an unnecessary burden on children and possibly worsens their adaptation in local schools, but in the parents' opinion, it insures children from possible gaps in their education. It is necessary to develop more flexible criteria for different groups of refugee children, depending on their age and their parents' plans to return home

Preprimary and Primary Education in India

The primary education objectives include developing basic literacy and numeracy skills fostering socialization and nurturing love for learning. It aims to prepare students for further education and life long learning. The near universalization of primary schooling is one of the great global achievements of past decades. In the early 1950s, 50% of primary school-aged children worldwide were out of school. Today, that figure stands at 11% Still, the most marginalized children remain cut off from primary education – deprived of their right to develop foundational literacy and numeracy (FLN) skills. An estimated 70% of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries are now unable to understand a simple written text. In low-income countries, only two thirds of children are estimated to complete primary school. Inequitable access exists across other divides: Children living in emergency and fragile settings, including refugee children, have fewer chances to complete primary school. Gender also plays a role, as girls who grow up in poor households are more likely than their male peers to have never attended or to have dropped out of primary school. Even for students in school, far too many are not learning the critical foundational skills (literacy and numeracy, but also digital and transferrable skills) they need to thrive. Primary education forms the bedrock of development. It is in primary school that children learn foundational skills that prepare them for life, work and active citizenship. Quality education empowers children and young people, safeguards their health and well-being, and breaks cycles of poverty.

The Mental Well-Being and Inclusion of Refugee Children: Considerations for Culturally Responsive Trauma-Informed Therapy for School Psychologists

Refugee children displaced by war suffer incredible amounts of physical and psychological trauma during and post-displacement. War is not partial to children, and they are subjected to as much extreme violence as adults. This paper explores the mental health of refugee children following war and was guided by the research question: What are the mental health experiences of refugee children displaced by war situations? A secondary data analysis was conducted on publicly available documentary short films and instructional videos on psychological therapy with refugee children and families. The data were analysed through Qualitative Conventional Content Analysis (QCCA). Three major categories emerged regarding the well-being of refugee children: (1) children are not spared from war trauma, (2) children live in perpetual fear and anxiety, and (3) war-related violence ignites aggressive behaviours in children. To increase positive mental health outcomes, school psychologists need to implement trauma-informed therapy that focuses on decreasing psychosocial reactions to war. Culturally responsive therapy is recommended as it places indigenous ways of being at the centre of the healing process.

How educators navigate language ideology and pedagogy in refugee education

ABSTRACT There are over 30 million people living as refugees today, nearly half of whom are under 18. For most young people fleeing conflict and persecution, their only option is to pursue education in already-stretched national school systems in host countries neighboring those they have left, often in unfamiliar languages. Despite the pressing issue of refugee education globally, there is little research about the educational inclusion of refugees in the Global South, not least related to language. This study begins to address this gap. Through a comparative case study, I draw on school-wide and classroom observations and interviews with educators across three schools in Kampala, Uganda to understand how educators navigate the linguistic inclusion of refugees at school. I find that, in the absence of guidance or training, school leaders draw on their ideological beliefs about multilingualism and migration to determine how to approach linguistic diversity at school. In turn, classroom teachers navigate constrained implementation spaces, balancing policies that require a dominant language as the language of instruction with multilingual realities in classrooms.

Motor Impairment Referrals to an International Child Development Clinic: It is Not Always Cerebral Palsy

BackgroundThe majority of the estimated 50 to 100 million children living with disability worldwide reside in low- or middle-income countries. As families migrate to avoid humanitarian crises, children with developmental disability and delay warrant particular attention in refugee and international health settings. During transitions, medical documentation may be lost and diagnoses may not be fully understood, contributing to the challenges of determining etiologies of motor impairment. MethodsOf the first 100 refugee children who were referred to the Child Development Clinic, we identified a subset of children referred for motor impairment or cerebral palsy. Data on their presentation, diagnoses following evaluation, and therapeutic services required was collected by retrospective chart review. ResultsTwenty children were referred for motor impairment and cerebral palsy. Average age was 8.9 years; 45% were female. Eight children were eventually diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and 12 had alternate or inconclusive diagnoses. Microcephaly was more common in children diagnosed with cerebral palsy. ConclusionsThe frequent differences between referral and final diagnoses in refugee children referred for cerebral palsy highlights the need for pediatricians’ careful examination and diagnostic reasoning upon initial presentation.

Demographic and Clinical Characteristics of Refugee Children Utilizing Healthcare Services of Türkiye (2021-2022): A Single-Centre Study

BACKGROUND: The number of refugees in the world has been increasing due to ongoing wars, political instability, violence, poverty and climate change. Türkiye has the world’s largest refugee population and half of the refugees are children. The aim of this study is to describe healthcare utilization patterns of the pediatric refugee population admitted to emergency, outpatient and inpatient services to enable hospitals to be better prepared to treat large numbers of refugee children. METHODS: This was a retrospective observational study using data from medical records of refugee children who had visited the _University of Health Sciences Sancaktepe Training and Research Hospital_, Istanbul, in pediatric emergency, outpatient and inpatient services between 1 June 2021 and 1 June 2022. RESULTS: 4383 refugee children including emergency (81.9%), outpatient (15.1%) and inpatient clinics (3%) were analyzed. The most frequently seen diseases for each service were upper respiratory infection and gastroenteritis in emergency; vitamin D deficiency and malnutrition in outpatient; lower respiratory infection, fever and intoxication in inpatient services. Most of the visits were non-urgent visits. COVID-19 disease was found in 1.3% of all children. CONCLUSION: Up to now, there is little data available on the health status of these pediatric refugees. This study demonstrates that refugee children’s visits to the Emergency Department (ED) are an initial first step for accessing healthcare. Identifying the reasons for non-emergency ED use might provide additional insights and new approaches to help serve the healthcare needs of this vulnerable population.

Impact of financial assistance on stunting: Syrian refugee children under 5 in Türkiye.

Despite the global decrease over the last two decades, stunting, also called 'chronic malnutrition', remains a public health issue affecting almost 150 million children under the age of 5 years globally. Defined by height-for-age, stunting is the consequence of poor nutrition, repeated infection, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation. Programmes and policies target undernutrition globally, and humanitarian and development actors invest great efforts to prevent stunting. This study uses multivariate analysis to examine the impact of financial assistance on the reduction of stunting in a refugee context, focusing on Syrian refugee children under the age of 5 years in Türkiye. Using a unique dataset, the 2018 Turkey Demographic and Health Survey Syrian Migrant Sample (2018 TDHS-SR), the findings indicate that financial assistance significantly reduces the incidence of stunting among refugee children under the control of economic, mother and children, environmental, health-related and nutritional and breastfeeding characteristics. However, having household members generate income is found to be another stronger predictor to reduce stunting. The paper also argues that the nutritional well-being of refugee children might improve if forced migration occurs towards a stable host country/region. In addition, adaptation over time also seems to have a positive influence.

“You cannot just stop life for just that”: a qualitative study on children’s experiences on refugee journey to Sweden

Children with refugee backgrounds are often exposed to violence and other adverse experiences with well-known detrimental consequences on mental health. However, the current group of approximately 40 million child refugees is heterogeneous, stressing the importance of first-person perspectives in understanding children’s unique experiences and needs related to the migration process. Identifying contextual factors promoting health and resilience is also essential. For instance, the roles children play as active agents in constructing their own lives and adapting to different environments are poorly described in contemporary research on child refugees and their mental health. To address these knowledge gaps, we conducted qualitative interviews with a reflexive thematic analysis with eighteen children with refugee backgrounds in Sweden. This resulted in two main themes: Longing for a good life that cannot be taken for granted and Challenged agency and changing rights. The narratives indicate that children, although exposed to different challenges in different migration phases and based on gender and asylum status, have experiences of ordinary childhood with a desire for a good life with prospects. The results also show that children execute active and adaptable agency that is impacted by various factors. Reaching the full age appears to be a confusing and ambivalent transition due to changes in rights. The results pinpoint several possibilities to address factors that pose a risk to health and restrictions of rights among child refugees.

During the chaos of war: US adoptions and risks for unaccompanied Ukrainian refugee children

The adoption of Ukrainian children, by US citizens, is examined as the Ukrainian government ceases adoptions of children during the chaos of war. Intercountry adoption dynamics are presented with data from 2021, prior to the conflict in 2022. Then, the situation regarding child rights and the official Ukrainian government position are considered. Implications for guardianship and foster care of unaccompanied refugee minors are presented along with other critical risks to Ukrainian children living in another country. Implications for social work practice are concluded and child rights advocacy is encouraged as a macro intervention.

Keeping refugee children in school and out of work: Evidence from the world's largest humanitarian cash transfer program

This paper investigates whether unconditional cash transfers can keep refugee children in school and out of work. We raise this question in the unique context of Turkey, which hosts the world's largest refugee population (including 3.6 million Syrians). Refugees in Turkey are supported by the world's largest cash transfer program for refugees, the Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN). We exploit a program eligibility criterion to identify the causal impacts of the ESSN program using a regression discontinuity design. The results show a large effect on child labor and school enrollment among both male and female refugee children. Being a beneficiary household reduces the fraction of children working from 14.0% to 1.6% (a decrease of 88%) and the fraction of children aged 6–17 not in school from 36.2 to 13.7% (a reduction of 62%). By unpacking the mechanisms at play, we show that ESSN cash transfers become a significant part of a household's income, substantially alleviate extreme poverty, and reduce a family's need to resort to harmful coping strategies. Investigating the reasons for children not attending school, we find that the beneficiary households become more likely to send children to school because the cash transfer addresses both the opportunity cost and direct cost of schooling—although the former channel is more important. The findings have important implications for the design of policies aimed at supporting refugee children at scale.

Health Risks of Unaccompanied Immigrant Children in Federal Custody and in US Communities.

Unaccompanied immigrant children continue to arrive at the US-Mexico border and are at high risk for ongoing abuse, neglect, and poor mental and physical health. We are medical and legal experts in the fields of immigrant and refugee health, child abuse, and the legal rights of international refugee and migrant children. We provide an overview of US federal agencies with custody of unaccompanied immigrant children, a summary of medical care provided while in custody, and recent findings from the independent Juvenile Care Monitor Report mandating new custodial conditions for immigrant children while in federal custody. We provide recommendations to improve the health and well-being of unaccompanied immigrant children while in custody and once released to US sponsors. (Am J Public Health. 2024;114(3):340-346. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307570).