Child migrant trauma & promoting resilience through school-based interventions

• In Event: Poster session I
  In Poster Session: Poster session 1

Proposal

This poster presentation examines existing school-based interventions that promote resilience and positive youth development among migrant children who have experienced trauma during migration to the United States.

This poster will explore the following questions:
- How have recent U.S. immigration enforcement policies, such as the family separation policy and child migrant detention centers, caused trauma for child migrants in the U.S.?
- What are existing school-based interventions that promote resilience and positive youth development among migrant children?
- How can those interventions be translated to work within the new context of family separation and child migrant detention centers?

Using a conceptual research framework, this presentation first focuses on children who have migrated from Mexico and Central America to the United States, and provides an overview of the connections between U.S. immigration enforcement policies and the subsequent risk for trauma and toxic stress among child migrants. With the Trump administration’s family separation policy and the resulting child migrant detention crises of 2018, conservative estimates suggest that this “has created more than 4,000 unnecessary instances of trauma” (Napoletano, 2018). For children, this trauma centers around being ripped away from their caregivers and support systems, but is amplified as they face “prison-like” conditions within the detention centers (Ryan, 2018). There is no shortage of research indicating that children need “safe, nurturing, and predictable environments to thrive” (Barajas-Gonzalez, Ayón, & Torres, 2018), and when they are deprived of these environments--such as in these detention centers-- they are at-risk for adverse psychosocial development and mental health issues.

Many children are being housed in detention centers for an indefinite period of time, but as of August 2018, at least 2,150 children have been released or reunited with their families, and are now living within U.S. borders (Shapiro & Sharma, 2018). Yet, there are no formal measures to address the trauma they have experienced at the hands of U.S. immigration enforcement policies. This presentation makes the assumption that schools can be a safe place for many migrant children, and that with the support of school staff (teachers, school psychologists, social workers, and administrators), students can find the support, strategies, and tools necessary to promote resilience (Garcia, A. 2018).

All of the existing studies and interventions related to child migrant trauma predate the family separation crisis of 2018. While some of these interventions may be applicable to the current wave of child migrants, psychologists, educators, and other risk & resilience professionals will need to develop new interventions to address the trauma that has been induced at the hands of U.S. immigration enforcement policies. Thus, this poster examines existing school-based interventions whose aim is to promote resilience among children who have experienced trauma during migration, with the goal of identifying possible intervention models that can be translated to the current crisis facing migrant children in the United States.

Author

• Magali Kathleen Garcia-Pletsch, University of Pennsylvania