Exploration of caregiver experiences and community-based interventions among refugee, internally-displaced, and war-impacted communities

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Global interventions implemented in displacement settings that work to improve children’s outcomes have primarily focused on adjusting specific parenting behaviours. However, more recent interventions have also focused on understanding the contextual factors that impact the mental health and wellbeing of caregivers as a vehicle for improving child outcomes. In this symposium, we provide evidence on how parenting can be shaped during displacement by internal and external factors and show how interventions that target these factors could be effective. We first discuss the experience of motherhood among displaced Iraqi and Syrians who were recently resettled in Chicago, highlighting how such an experience could be influential in shaping the way, and the extent mothers promote the wellbeing of their displaced children. Our second paper explores how recently resettled Afghani parents navigate systematic and cultural barriers upon their arrival in the state of Maine and how these barriers could enable or disable parenting skills necessary for promoting child wellbeing. The third paper features the successful implementation and evaluation of a program aimed at strengthening the resilience and wellbeing of caregivers (parents, grandparents, and educators) of young children disproportionately impacted by the armed conflict in Colombia. Together, the symposium will highlight methods for formulating effective programs from a cross-cultural and cross-national perspective and make a case for parenting programs as an integral part of responses to refugee crises and other humanitarian emergencies.

Sub Unit

• Solicited Content: Displacement Related

Chair

• Qusai Khraisha, Trinity College Dublin

Discussant

• Qusai Khraisha, Trinity College Dublin

Individual Presentations

• Mothering in resettlement: An analysis of caregiving stress and adjustment among Syrian and Iraqi refugee women. - Presenting Author: Nicole Zolman, University of Illinois at Chicago; Mary Bunn, University of Illinois at Chicago

• Promoting Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing Using an Evidenced-based Whole Family Mental Health Promotion Intervention for Resettling Afghans: Initial Lessons Learned - Presenting Author: Euijin Jung, Boston College; Farhad Sharifi, Boston College; Mary Bunn, University of Illinois at Chicago; Theresa Stichick Betancourt, Boston College

• Design, implementation and evaluation of a program to strengthen resilience-building skills among caregivers of young children impacted by the armed conflict in Colombia - Presenting Author: Lina María González Ballesteros, Fundacion Saldarriaga Concha; Camila Andrea Castellanos-Rocancio, Fundación Saldarriaga Concha; Sascha Hein, Freie Universität Berlin; Ana María Ortiz Hoyos, Fundacion Saldarriaga Concha; Oscar Gómez, Fundacion Saldarriaga Concha; José M. Flores, University of California los Angeles; Amalia Londoño Tobón, Yale University; Felipe Bolívar Rincon, Fundacion Saldarriaga Concha; Liliana Angelica Ponguta, Yale University