Finding keys:A systematic review of barriers and facilitators for refugee children's disclosure of their life stories

The systematic review presented in this article aims to reveal what supports and hampers refugee children in telling their, often traumatic, life stories. This is important to ensure that migration decisions are based on reliable information about the children’s needs for protection. A systematic review was conducted in academic journals, collecting all available scientific knowledge about the disclosure of life stories by refugee minors in the context of social work, guardianship, foster care, asylum procedures, mental health assessment, and therapeutic settings. The resulting 39 studies were thoroughly reviewed with reference to what factors aided or hampered the refugee children’s disclosure of their life stories. The main barriers to disclosure were feelings of mistrust and self-protection from the side of the child and disrespect from the side of the host community. The facilitators for disclosing life stories were a positive and respectful attitude of the interviewer, taking time to build trust, using nonverbal methods, providing agency to the children, and involving trained interpreters. Social workers, mentors, and guardians should have time to build trust and to help a young refugee in revealing the life story before the minor is heard by the migration authorities. The lack of knowledge on how refugee children can be helped to disclose their experiences is a great concern because the decision in the migration procedure is based on the story the child is able to disclose

A Safe Home? A Qualitative Study into the Experiences of Adolescents Growing Up in the Dutch Area Impacted by Earthquakes Induced by Gas Extraction

For decades, the Netherlands has experienced minor earthquakes due to gas extraction. This study aims to obtain insight into the experiences of adolescents and the impact of these earthquakes on their well-being and living environment. Focus groups were held with 24 adolescents, and interviews were held with 3 adolescents (N = 27; M = 15 years). Through qualitative analysis, we identified six themes. The adolescents shared experiences of anxiety related to the earthquakes and their consequences and considered these to be a normal part of their life. Anxiety and feelings of endangerment not only related to their own experiences but were also connected to the impact of earthquakes on their social environment, such as the restoration of buildings. Several sources of support (e.g., talking, social cohesion) were mentioned to deal with the negative consequences of the earthquakes. A lack of trust in the government was an additional main theme, with adolescents mentioning several needs, potentially relevant to policymakers in the Netherlands. Growing up in the gas extraction area of Groningen had many consequences on the adolescents in the study, who felt inhibited from expressing feelings of anxiety and fear. To support their needs, interventions at the individual, family, educational, societal, and policy levels are recommended. View Full-Tex

Migrant and asylum-seeker children returned to Kosovo and Albania:Predictive factors for social-emotional wellbeing after return

The return of rejected asylum seekers has a high priority on the national agendas of European States. In order to make well-informed asylum decisions involving children, knowledge of how asylum-seeker children fare after their return to their countries of origin is needed. This study aims to gain knowledge about the child-rearing environment and the social-emotional wellbeing of migrant children who have returned to Kosovo and Albania after a stay in a European host country. Based on a sample of 106 returned families, the study investigated the predictive factors for children’s social-emotional wellbeing after return using regression analyses. The findings show that procedural characteristics and ethnicity predict wellbeing, mediated through the quality of the child-rearing environment. The most vulnerable children did not have a stable resident status in the host country, belonged to a minority ethnic group and were older adolescents. The findings indicate that the wellbeing of returned children is not only dependent on conditions after repatriation, but also on the conditions which the families left in the host country. To enable sustainable return in a child’s best interests, the needs of vulnerable families and children should be thoroughly assessed prior to their return, and reintegration support should be tailored to their situation

The Best Interests of the Child from different cultural perspectives:Factors influencing judgements of the quality of child-rearing environment and construct validity of the Best Interests of the Child-Questionnaire (BIC-Q) in Kosovo and Albania

Child-rearing practices and beliefs of what determines a ‘good quality’ of child-rearing differ across cultural contexts and diverse interpretations can be given to “a child’s best interests”. This study aims to examine the cultural factors that influence judgements of the quality of children’s rearing environment, and the construct validity of the Best Interests of the Child-Questionnaire (BIC-Q) scale when used in the Western Balkans. In our research on migrant children who returned to Kosovo and Albania, the BIC-Q is used to assess the quality of the child-rearing environment from a local cultural perspective on child-rearing. To assess cultural differences in judgements of the child-rearing environment, we measured agreement through Cohen’s kappa of BIC-Qs completed from a Western-Balkan and a Western-European perspective on child-rearing. The construct validity of the BIC-Q scale was assessed through a Mokken scale analysis. The findings show that – except for two items – there is substantial agreement between Western-European and Western-Balkan assessors regarding the direction of the judgement, i.e. if the scores on the child-rearing conditions are dichotomized (sufficient/insufficient). The judgements of the ‘respect’ and ‘interest’ conditions are sensitive to differences in the cultural or professional perspectives of the assessors. The findings of the Mokken scale analysis demonstrate a strong and reliable scale in the cultural context of the Western Balkans (H=.73; Rho=.97). Knowledge gained from using the BIC-Q to assess the living situation of returned migrant children in their countries of origin and insight into child-rearing standards provides input for the best interests of the child determination

The BIC-Q: a tool to assess the childrearing environment of asylym-seeking children.

De Best Interest of the Child Questionnaire (BIC-Q) is een instrument om de door gedragsdeskundigen waargenomen kwaliteit van de opvoedingsomgeving van kinderen te meten. De vragenlijst is gebaseerd op pedagogische, psychologische en juridische uitgangspunten. Verondersteld wordt dat het psychosociaal functioneren van een kind gerelateerd is aan de kwaliteit van de opvoedingsomgeving waarin het verblijft. Doel van het onderzoek is op basis van deze aanname de criterium-georiënteerde validiteit van de BIC-Q te toetsen bij een specifieke groep minderjarigen: asielzoekerskinderen voor wie een verblijfsvergunning in Nederland is aangevraagd (N=79). Naast de BIC-Q is een vragenlijst voor psychosociaal functioneren van kinderen gehanteerd (VSPS). Uit logistische regressieanalyse blijkt dat er - zoals verwacht - een negatieve relatie bestaat tussen de kwaliteit van de opvoedingsomgeving en de kans op internaliserende gedragsproblemen. De ROC-curve laat zien dat de BIC-Q een goed onderscheidend vermogen bezit: 81% van de kinderen wordt correct geclassificeerd wat betreft al dan niet hebben van internaliserende gedragsproblematiek. We gaan in op de implicaties en reikwijdte van het onderzoek, en formuleren wensen voor nadere studie

"There is no mother to take care of you":Views of unaccompanied children on health care, their mental health and rearing environment

This study aimed to shed light on the opinions of unaccompanied refugee children (N = 98) in various care facilities in the Netherlands (small living groups, small living units, foster families, large reception centres) about their mental health, their healthcare needs and their rearing environment. A mixed methods design was applied. The quality of the child-rearing environment and the age on arrival in the host country proved to be predictive of mental health outcomes. Unaccompanied children living in large reception centres experienced the lowest quality of rearing environment, the highest mental health problems and poor access to mental healthcare. Implications for practice and research are reflected upon