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Engaging Refugee Families in a Family-Strengthening Intervention to Promote Child Mental Health and Family Functioning

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Child, Adolescent and Family Refugee Mental Health

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Abstract

This chapter provides a brief overview of barriers that mental health practitioners face when working with refugee children and families and the importance of engaging with refugee communities in equitable partnerships in order to improve engagement in, and effectiveness of, family strengthening interventions. Challenges include stigma around mental health as well as formal mental healthcare systems not well adapted to meet the needs of refugee families. Practical barriers include the challenge of prioritizing addressing mental health problems, while refugee families are in the midst of dealing with competing stressors related to displacement or third country resettlement. Other issues arise within the clinical encounter, such as dependence on outside interpreters for communication between practitioners and clients, which make engaging in treatment challenging and undesirable. Authors draw upon their own experiences as refugee community leaders, healthcare professionals, and researchers engaged in community-based refugee mental health work to provide practical recommendations and strategies to overcome these barriers and work with refugee children and families.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Social and Transcultural Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Rochelle L. Frounfelker

  2. Research Program on Children and Adversity, Boston College School of Social Work, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

    Tej Mishra, Jenna M. Berent & Theresa S. Betancourt

  3. Bhutanese Society of Western Massachusetts, Inc., Springfield, MA, USA

    Bhuwan Gautam

  4. Shanbaro Community Association, Chelsea Collaborative, Chelsea, MA, USA

    Abdirahman Abdi

Authors
  1. Rochelle L. Frounfelker
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  2. Tej Mishra
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  3. Bhuwan Gautam
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  4. Jenna M. Berent
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  5. Abdirahman Abdi
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  6. Theresa S. Betancourt
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rochelle L. Frounfelker .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

    Suzan J. Song

  2. Public Health Section (Division of Resilience and Solutions), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Genève, Geneve, Switzerland

    Peter Ventevogel

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Frounfelker, R.L., Mishra, T., Gautam, B., Berent, J.M., Abdi, A., Betancourt, T.S. (2020). Engaging Refugee Families in a Family-Strengthening Intervention to Promote Child Mental Health and Family Functioning. In: Song, S., Ventevogel, P. (eds) Child, Adolescent and Family Refugee Mental Health. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45278-0_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45278-0_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-45277-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-45278-0

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