Missing out refugee education in crisis
The material for this topic was prepared by UNHCR – The UN Refugee Agency and is available here, titled Missing Out Refugee Education in Crisis.
In the material, you can read about the following:
- The Global Picture
- Quality education is the anchor that will keep children in school
- Learning in a new system
- From camp to campus
- From school to university in four years
- Finding ways to innovate and connect
- Learning to heal
- Connecting to a brighter future
- The struggle for equality
Psychological support to newly arrived migrant children
Migration means facing three main challenges:
- Mourning the loss of what was left behind in the country of origin.
- Dealing with multiple situations of stress and survival.
- Adapting to a new culture and creating a new identity.
Multiple factors may compromise the welfare of minors in the host country:
- the pre-migration departure situation;
- the migration process and the opportunities or difficulties that arise in the context of reception and
- the age, primarily if migration occurs during adolescence.
On top of being in a new country, migrant children must deal with a new culture, new people, new rules and a new school, therefore each child will require a different pace and time for completing the adaptation process. It is then vital to value the person’s strengths and be aware of them.
Intervention in the migration context involves breaking the silence and start talking about what each person has lived, how they have behaved and how they feel about it; as well as learning the rules of the receiving country, getting to know the language and system of beliefs of the host country and reinforcing the extant knowledge about the host country, through the encouragement of getting involved with the native population, the creation of social support networks and finding ways to support each other.
Family intervention
The family plays a crucial role in helping children cope with adversity, to digest a situation like the one they are experiencing at present. It is therefore important to advise parents about:
- Caring for and promoting the emotional bond between their children and themselves or other stable references.
- Providing safety and protection: Reassuring your children about the future, solving all their doubts, and, most of all, regarding the small details of their daily lives.
- Generating routines: The more predictable life is, the higher the feeling that life is safe.
- If more changes are it was a strong possibility (losses or future separations, new changes of the environment, etc.) the parents must give clear information adapted to the child’s age concerning future life changes.
- Avoiding overreacting to inappropriate behaviour. Parents must keep in mind that this may be the only way the child has to release the tension and express what he/she feels.
- Progressive adaptation: It is crucial that parents do not pressure or demand their children a quick adjustment to the new situation. Children must be given time and follow their rhythm without comparing them to their peers.
- Talking to their children about their needs and the migration situation, always respecting their personal space and their refusal to speak if that was the case. If they show anger or guilt, evaluate and stabilise their reactions, explaining that the situation was inevitable and that no one (not even them) has any responsibility in what happened.
Psychological support for minors
According to the recommendations of the Official Spanish School of psychologists (2016), during the adaptation process, children may display some newly developed disruptive or non-evolving behaviours: tantrums, denials of requests, re-wetting the bed, excessive crying, not wanting to be alone or with other people or having difficulties interacting with their peers, among others. The child might experiment with a torrent of emotions that he/she does not understand or has never experienced, which leads to such behaviours to channel the explosion of feelings. Psychological support will then help to facilitate the expression of emotions: talking about what happened and how they feel will allow them to accept the new circumstances.
Some important goals when working with the child could be:
- The organisation of daily life: Devise a schedule where the educational and leisure activities are planned together with the child. Establishing routines will give the child a feeling of more excellent safety and self-control.
- Physiological control techniques: Use training techniques for deep breathing and progressive relaxation, to decrease the child’s levels of physiological activation and anxiety.
- Increase leisure activities with their referent figures and peers.
- Encourage the formation of support groups in which children may have the opportunity to talk and share their concerns, feeling that they are not alone.
- Improve/strengthen the bond with the family. Encourage emotional expression among members, so that children feel protected and safe, and the family nucleus fulfils the function of support in the face of the difficulties the child may suffer.
- Expression and emotion management. Facilitate the expression of emotions, through psychoeducation adapted to the child’s age, explaining the meaning of each emotion and its physical manifestation, while increasing body self-awareness and facilitating the identification of their feelings.
- Promote autonomy through the participation of children in the progressive undertaking of daily responsibilities. For example: dressing alone, helping with household chores, etc.
- Social Skills. Training in communicative and assertive skills for adaptation and interaction with their peers. Besides, work on a better understanding of social rules and their adaptation to the cultural system.
- Carry out psycho-educational work with the parents regarding the importance of positive reinforcement to promote the repetition of desirable behaviours. This will allow for a higher self-concept and perception of the child’s self-efficacy.
- Ask children about their current thoughts on their situation, and what they think is going to happen, to know their immediate and future fears and concerns.
- Help the child to understand his emotions and to find a suitable way of expressing them, assertively showing them alternative behaviours, without imperatives and following the child’s times.
Consulted bibliography
- Aparicio, R. & Portes, A. (2014). Growing Up in Spain: The Integration of the Children of Immigrants. Barcelona: la Caixa” Welfare Projects
- COP (2016). Guía para la intervención psicológica con inmigrantes y refugiados. Madrid: Colegio Oficial de psicólogos,
- Diaz, M. (2017). Menores refugiados: impacto psicológico y salud mental. Apuntes de Psicología, 2017, 35(2), 83-91.
Manzani, L. y Arnoso, M. (2014). Bienestar psicosocial en menores y jóvenes extranjeros sin referente familiar adulto: factores de riesgo y protección. Norte de salud mental, 49: 33-45. - Menjívar, C & Perreira, K.M. (2019) Undocumented and unaccompanied: children of migration in the European Union and the United States. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45 (2), 197-217. DOI: 10.1080/1369183X.2017.1404255
- Suárez-Orozco, C., & Suárez-Orozco, M. M. (2001). Children of migration. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(4), 8-14.
Individual work with migrant children at school
The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on November 20, 1989, states in its 28th article that the member states recognise the right of every child to education and that they must carry out actions to guarantee the access of the child to all educational levels.
The states must also take measures to encourage regular school attendance and reduce drop-out rates. The educational system must be prepared to welcome, in the best possible conditions, those students who have arrived in our classrooms because they accompany their families in their displacement, or on their own (unaccompanied minors). The intervention with these children must follow an action protocol guaranteeing an optimal reception process for newly arrived students to our schools. Particular attention should be given to the migrant students (and their families), who did not come of their own will, but because of forced displacement, so the conditions in which they arrive are very particular.
The process of reception begins before their actual incorporation into the education, and it ends when the child has developed those necessary skills and abilities (linguistic and psychosocial) that should allow him/her to become a full participant in school life. To do so, the child will be assigned to a school close to their living address (home, reception centre or child protection centre). The system should ensure that all siblings will be attending the same educational facility whenever possible. Also, the services of an intercultural mediator, a social mediator or an interpreter, should be procured if necessary.
This process has a variable duration depending on the situation in which the student finds him or herself. It is essential to carry out a first interview with the child and his/her family to gather personal, family, academic and health information as well as information about the family situation to be able to tailor the process to the child’s needs. The educational community should also be involved in the planning and coordination of the welcome and reception protocol, by maintaining a sensitive, understanding and collaborative attitude and providing an environment supportive of communication and trust. It is also essential to organise and develop activities to raise awareness in the educational community, to generate empathy for displaced people and avoid xenophobic, discriminatory, and racist attitudes. To formulate and implement these activities, the collaboration of professionals and community technicians from associations and specialised NGOs must be sought.
It is necessary to organise a welcome meeting with the student and his/her family, to favour a climate of friendliness, confidence and trust. This meeting consists of a visit to the school facilities in which the child will be introduced to the people who will be part of their daily life; the personal tutor or the class tutor must introduce the new student to his/her peers.
Some time afterwards, once the student has been through the orientation process, their academic history must be evaluated to determine the child’s needs and to establish measures for social, economic, personal and educational support, as well as to provide him or her with relevant information and develop competencies in oral and written communication in the language of the receiving country.
Consulted bibliography
- Aparicio, R. & Portes, A. (2014). Growing Up in Spain: The Integration of the Children of Immigrants. Barcelona: la Caixa” Welfare Projects
- Alegre, M.A. (2008). Educación e inmigración. ¿un binomio problemático?. Revista de educación, 345, 61-82.
- Burnett, S., Kugler, E.G., and Tesh, C. (2015). Empower educators to teach immigration. Kappan, 97(4), 15-20.
- Suárez-Orozco, C., & Suárez-Orozco, M. M. (2001). Children of migration. Phi delta Kappan, 97(4), 8-14.
- UNESCO (2015). World Education Forum. Incheon, Korea R. Available on https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000233245
