Dataset Information

Cultural Competence of Professionals Working With Unaccompanied Minors: Addressing Empathy by a Shared Narrative.

ABSTRACT: Background:The number of migrant youth traveling without parents continues to rise in Europe and North America. Some of t hem leave their home countries on their own and find themselves in a new country, separated from their family and cut off from their cultural roots. Besides those who leave to study, work, and pursue a better life, others are escaping war-torn countries. They need adequate social, educational, and therapeutic spaces, where they can feel entitled to speak. Social workers often ask about how they can understand these young people better so that they can provide them with better care (cope with their trauma and suspicion, deal with the cultural distance between the adolescents and their social workers, etc). Aim:At Cochin Hospital in Paris, we led a participative action-research program to transmit cultural competence to social workers who provide care for these youth. The aim was to develop an approach to help these young migrants to share their representations about themselves and to train these social workers to encourage this sharing in a culturally sensitive manner. Methods:This study used a qualitative method that mixed narrative and transcultural approaches. Two researchers met each youth and social worker with an interpreter-cultural mediator three times (once a month) to assess changes in their relationships during the study. The youth were asked to bring three items of their choice, representing their past, present, and future. They could use their imagination and creativity. We also used the circle test described by Cottle for this purpose. We used a phenomenological approach to analyze the interviews. Results and Discussion:This study included 29 young people from 13 different countries and 29 social workers. A transcultural approach appears to be a useful framework for reactivating their identity construction process. It promotes the emergence of cultural representations and takes their experiences before, during, and after migration into account. We assisted them in developing their ability to produce a thorough narrative of their bicultural adolescences and simultaneously helped their social workers to develop their cultural competence. Conclusion:Together, a transcultural approach and methods stimulating the production of narrative are relevant ways to help children to describe their representations of themselves, especially those who have learned to protect themselves by remaining silent. This protocol could be useful for both preventive action and therapy for psychotrauma.

SUBMITTER: Radjack R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7301836 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Cultural Competence of Professionals Working With Unaccompanied Minors: Addressing Empathy by a Shared Narrative.

Radjack Rahmeth R Touhami Fatima F Woestelandt Laure L Minassian Sevan S Mouchenik Yoram Y Lachal Jonathan J Moro Marie Rose MR

Frontiers in psychiatry 20200611

<h4>Background</h4>The number of migrant youth traveling without parents continues to rise in Europe and North America. Some of t hem leave their home countries on their own and find themselves in a new country, separated from their family and cut off from their cultural roots. Besides those who leave to study, work, and pursue a better life, others are escaping war-torn countries. They need adequate social, educational, and therapeutic spaces, where they can feel entitled to speak. Social worke ...[more]

PMID: 32595535

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundUnaccompanied refugee minors-or unaccompanied minors-are children and adolescents who have been separated from parents and other relatives and are not being cared for by an adult. Unaccompanied minors are a vulnerable population, with numerous stressors and complex psychiatric symptoms necessitating specialized mental health care. This study explores patients' experiences of a Multimodal Co-Therapy for Unaccompanied Minors (MUCTUM), which encompasses cultural, biological, narrative & institutional approaches to care.MethodsMUCTUM is a co-therapy program for unaccompanied minors, with a psychiatrist, psychologist, native-language interpreter, and caseworker for each patient. In this qualitative study, we interviewed adolescents about their experiences with MUCTUM and analyzed these semi-structured interviews using a phenomenological framework (Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis).ResultsQualitative analysis of 16 interviews discovered that unaccompanied minors felt misunderstood before participating in MUCTUM, describing a sense of strangeness and loneliness in relation to psychiatric symptoms. Several youths experienced triple stigmatization: of being unaccompanied minors, of suffering from psychotrauma, and of being mental health patients. We further describe three overarching domains that inform on MUCTUM support to unaccompanied minors: (1) A safe space for unaccompanied minors; (2) Helpful interventions during therapy; and (3) Narrating one's story can "set us free" if guided carefully by care providers.ConclusionThis study suggests that MUCTUM therapy may efficiently support unaccompanied minors' mental health by acknowledging their hierarchy of needs. Psychotherapeutic strategies include creating a safe place, providing culturally appropriate care and patient-centered therapy, addressing concrete problems, supporting relationships, and making use of limited reparenting in therapy. Delayed and progressive inquiry about traumatic events may be beneficial. Replication of these findings and their field application is warranted.

Project description:BACKGROUND:By law, the provision of medical treatment to minors in the State of Israel is conditional upon the consent of their parents. In 2004, the Head of the Medical Administration Unit in the Ministry of Health issued Circular No. 4/2004 regarding the treatment of un-accompanied minors in primary care clinics. This circular aims to expand on the law, and permits the treatment of certain minors without parental attendance or consent. The circular does indicate that parents should be notified of the treatment retroactively, and provides cases in which it is possible to avoid notification altogether. The objectives of this study were: (a) to examine the scope of treatment of unaccompanied minors in primary care clinics; (b) to examine caregivers' knowledge of the provisions of the law and of the circular; and (c) to examine the implementation of the law's and the circular's provisions relating to the treatment of unaccompanied minors in primary care clinics in the community. METHODS:In a cross-sectional study, we surveyed 158 doctors and nurses from primary care clinics of the Haifa and Galilee districts of "Clalit Health Services". Respondents were selected via a snowball method, with attention to ensuring a heterogeneous clientele and geographic dispersion. RESULTS:Treatment seeking by unaccompanied minors is an existing and even widespread phenomenon. The vast majority of unaccompanied minors were in effect treated without parental consent. The main reason for minors' solitary treatment seeking was parents being busy. In 40% of the cases, where minors were treated without the presence and consent of their parents - parents were not notified of the fact. None of the respondents correctly answered all questions regarding the relevant provisions of the law and circular, and only 10% answered all the questions regarding the circular's parental notification requirements. CONCLUSIONS:The Israeli legal arrangement, pertaining to the provision of treatment to minors without the consent of their parents, is vague, unclear to medical and nursing practitioners and limited in terms of the needs of the minors themselves, as well as the needs of the medical system. There is a need for methodical and coherent regulatory thinking on the subject, as well as more thorough education of both nurses and physicians, in order to ensure the rights and interests of minors as well as the rights of their parents.

Dataset Information

Cultural Competence of Professionals Working With Unaccompanied Minors: Addressing Empathy by a Shared Narrative.

Publications

Cultural Competence of Professionals Working With Unaccompanied Minors: Addressing Empathy by a Shared Narrative.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets