Understanding the Perspectives of Refugee Unaccompanied Minors Using a Computer-Assisted Interview (original) (raw)
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Resettling into a new country may pose many challenges for unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs). In this study we seek to get a better understanding of these challenges through analysing interviews with 48 URMs five years after their arrival in Norway, using the concept of turning points as an analytic frame. Gaining a sense of security, feeling affiliated, being loved and cared for, and becoming independent were identified as important turning points. Despite high levels of agency, many of the youths struggled to fulfil these basic needs, possibly due to limited relational and cultural resources. These struggles seemed to interfere with their capacity to participate in important developmental activities, affecting their well‐being and making integration difficult. This study's results accentuate the need for better systems and assistance from people in their support system to help URMs towards feeling secure, affiliated, loved, and independent as this may facilitate resettlement...
In this paper we talk about narrative as a process within research but also within real life. We discuss how the analysis of the interviews that form the basis of this paper shows that storytelling is not that transparent act of self -disclosure that many, particularly narrative turn proponents, argue it is (see for example McAdams 1997, Freeman 2006). Analyzing these narratives by unaccompanied minor migrants makes it apparent that there are stories that are very hard to tell, that relationships between researchers and interviewees have to be slowly built in order to create the conditions for disclosure and understanding, that this process changes all those involved. Finally we argue that ethnographic approaches are the most useful to provide insights into complex phenomena such as the situation of young non accompanied minors in that they allow for data triangulation, but also that researching these issues presents many ethical dilemmas. Thus in this paper we want to stress the role of reflexivity in the study of sociolinguistic phenomena.
European Journal of Social Work, 2019
Little is known about the growing phenomenon of ‘mentorship for “unaccompanied refugee minors”’. This article looks into one serious gap, based on a case study in Austria, asking: How do these young people, most of them seeking asylum, represent relationships in a mentorship programme? Here, youth mentoring is understood as a community-based form of social intervention carried out by an organisation that connects trained adult volunteers with young people. The findings from two multilingual group interviews focus on various dimensions of social support and social capital, e.g. with regard to settling in and life course transitions. Reacting to calls for methodological reflection in studies on the refugee experience, the article presents in detail the setting and approach, which partly built on the concept of the ‘tripled Otherness of “unaccompanied minors”’. An analysis of their narrations is discussed against the wider context, particularly that of systematic discrimination by welfare agencies and efforts by various actors to rearrange URMs’ differential inclusion. The conclusion proposes that research should better reflect the political dimension in mentoring for marginalised populations. It argues that the potential of such programmes should be tapped to develop progressive protection arrangements extending beyond the limits of the welfarist nation state.
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More than half of the refugees who have resettled to the United States in recent years have been youth. Refugee youth have often witnessed or experienced violence and family separation prior to resettlement and face barriers to successful resettlement such as language and educational challenges. These factors elevate risk for mental and emotional distress, and protective factors like strong familial relationships are important to promoting mental well-being. This study utilized focus groups with 36 refugees ages 18 to 25 from four ethnic groups to explore conceptualizations of and communication about mental and emotional distress within and outside of family systems. Youth reported a nuanced conceptualization of their premigration and postmigration stressors and their patterns of communication about distress in three domains: (a) exposure to traumatic stress prior to resettlement, (b) stressful experiences in resettlement, and (c) communication about mental health inside and outside of family groups. KEYWORDS intergenerational communication, refugee resettlement, refugee youth 1 | BACKGROUND There are currently more than 25 million refugees under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (2018) mandate and more than half are younger than age 18. More than 3 million refugees have resettled to the United States since the 1980s and in 2016; approximately 48% of resettled refugees were dependent children (Mossad & Baugh, 2018). Refugee resettlement scholarship has focused primarily on adult mental health outcomes and relatively limited attention has been paid to the experiences of younger refugees, especially within family contexts (Betancourt et al., 2015; Fazel, Reed, Panter-Brick, & Stein, 2012; McMichael, Gifford, & Correa-Velez, 2011). Additionally, emerging adulthood (ages 18 to 25) has become an important developmental stage, especially for identity development (Arnett, 2000), and it is important to spotlight older youth and young adults in research with refugees and immigrants given their unique developmental needs and experiences (Cohen & Kassan, 2018; Qin et al., 2015). Refugee youth often experience multiple premigration stressors that can contribute to post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression, and anxiety (Fazel et al., 2012; Guruge & Butt, 2015). Many refugee children and adolescents spend formative years separated from their families, and their schooling is often disrupted (Halcón et al., 2004). Due to increasingly protracted conflict situations, many refugees arrive in the United States having spent most or all of their lives in refugee camps where they have limited access to adequate nutrition, healthcare, and education (Halcón et al., 2004). Refugee families face resettlement and acculturative stressors such as poverty, unstable housing, and limited language proficiency (Betancourt et al., 2015;
Qualitative Social Work, 2019
Without access to their own families, how do young, unaccompanied refugee minors re-establish their social lives in ways that facilitate a sense of togetherness in their everyday lives during resettlement? This question was approached by exploring the young persons’ creation of relational practices and the kinds of sociomaterial conditions that seemed to facilitate the evolvement of these practices, including the professional caregivers’ contributions. Interviews with 11 boys and 4 girls (aged 13–16) from Afghanistan, Somalia, Angola and Sri Lanka, as well as their professional caregivers in their country of residence, Norway, were analysed systematically by searching for, and categorizing, the variation of relational practices among the young persons. Three overarching practices are presented. First, the young persons worked to connect past, present and future contexts through collective meaning-making practices. Second, they regulated their peers’ emotions through emotional care p...