The Immigrant and Refugee Mental Health Project facilitates a virtual Community of Practice (CoP) comprised of health, settlement and social services providers across Canada who support the mental health of immigrants and refugees. The CoP online discussion board allows providers to pose questions to the Project’s panel of subject matter experts (SMEs). We will be bringing you some of the questions posed by providers and answers provided by the SMEs.   

Question

I work as a child and youth program officer, and my work involves assisting families with inputting their kids to school and providing services for the children and the families at the school. These services could be arranging appointments, setting up interpretation, advocating for the children, running school programs. One of the biggest challenges I have found working with newcomer children is helping them process their trauma and encourage them to pursue their academics. Some children are fixated on images and stories of violence or war, and it can be noticed in their play time, casual conversations and conversations about career prospects. Some children display inappropriate behaviors such as school fights and smoking, either to seek validation from others or as a coping. Counseling is an option but there is one counselor for every 400 children in a school.  

My question is, as a settlement provider with minimal training at the moment in counseling, how could I approach such cases, what techniques could I use to better listen, and in some way help the child process either the trauma or post migratory stressors of being in a new environment? Are their activities I could employ in my school programs example, art therapy? 

Dr. Ghayda Hassan, Psychologist, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), writes:

Thank you very much for your question. Your observations are very accurate and it is really sad to see how little services there are for children affected by trauma. Though individual counselling is always a good option when the child or teenager is open to it, some things can be done to provide children with some possibilities to gradually process the trauma.

First, it is important to remember that processing trauma takes time, we need to be patient, accompanying and listening with empathy is great, it gives children space to talk about what is in their minds and hearts. When we listen we can also normalize the emotions and help the child and teenager reduce the potential feelings of stigma.

I suggest you can also seek training for trauma informed care, there are some free e-learning programs on the web you can seek. Art and art therapy and programs of sand play are very good. They can also be implemented in the schools as well and they have shown very good results. They can be used to train teachers and also have one professional accompany and can be very well integrated within class activities.

Reading stories about resilience is also good.

Helping children and teens also write their story, choosing words, and pictures etc., it is helpful. The idea here is to have them come to tell a story where trauma is part of their lives of course but not that their identity and life does not revolve around it. Helping them construct a vision of the future.

Of course post trauma symptoms will also remain if the child and teen’s daily life and environment are marked by insecurities or violence, so we also need to make sure that their home environment is stable and not violent and that they are not experiencing intimidation, racism or violence at school.