2-059 - Psychological Well-Being of Refugee Children

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The world is currently witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record with more than 68 million people forced from home. About 25 million of them are refugees and over half of them younger than 18 years. As well as having experienced traumatic war-related events, many refugees end up living in adverse conditions. It is well established that children exposed to war and displacement are at increased risk for the development of mental health problems. But despite the extreme adversity associated with war and displacement, there is substantial variation in how refugee children respond with some showing remarkable resilience. However, relatively little is known regarding refugee children’s psychological well-being such as subjective well-being, self-efficacy and social competence which is the focus of this symposium.
The first paper features new data on the presence and predictors of various well-being outcomes in a large sample of Syrian refugee children based in Lebanon. In addition to identifying environmental predictors of well-being, the study also investigates whether the identified factors buffer the negative effects of war exposure on well-being. The second paper reports new data on the reliability, validity and comparability of the widely used Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) as a measure of teacher-reported well-being featuring several large samples of refugee children in Lebanon, Iraq and Nigeria. The third paper focuses on the role of language skills, social support, and discrimination regarding the development of refugee children’s self-efficacy in a large longitudinal sample of refugee children admitted to Australia.

Sub Unit

• Social, Emotional, Personality

Chair

• Michael Pluess, Queen Mary University of London

Discussant

• Sarah Smith, International Rescue Committee

Individual Presentations

• Psychological Well-Being of Syrian Refugee Children in Lebanon - Presenting Author: Michael Pluess, Queen Mary University of London; Non-Presenting Author: Fiona McEwen, Queen Mary University of London; Non-Presenting Author: Bernadette de Villiers, Queen Mary University of London; Non-Presenting Author: Elie Karam, Balamand University; Non-Presenting Author: John Fayyad, Balamand University; Non-Presenting Author: Patricia Moghames, Médecins du Monde; Non-Presenting Author: Stephanie Legoff, Médecins du Monde

• Measurement of Psycho-social Well-being among Displaced Children: Strengths and Difficulties of Common Assessment Approache - Presenting Author: Carly Tubbs Dolan, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Lawrence J. Aber, New York University

• Developmental and acculturation predictors of changes in self-efficacy among new arrived refugee youth in Australia - Presenting Author: Ben Edwards, Australian National University; Non-Presenting Author: Pilar Rioseco, Australian Institute of Family Studies