As a mental health worker, working with refugee children is a very critical assignment that requires careful considerations before taking up the task. In this case, the children have been relocated from a refugee camp in central Nigeria to live in my city with some foster families. The children include boys and girls, increasing the need to be sensitive in dealing with both genders. Coming from poor living conditions in the Nigerian refugee camps, the children have been exposed to food scarcity, brutal violence, diseases, and sexual assault. They have undergone traumatizing experiences such as seeing their families murdered and their homes razed down in flames. Some of the children also suffered physical injuries adding complications to their emotional disorientation.
With the children being of different ages and gender, they have undergone different psychological effects due to the violence. The common effects include conduct disorder, eating disorders, sexualized behaviors, anxiety, depression, aggression, substance abuse, and somatization. With the children headed to the adolescent stage, the emotional deficits affecting their psychology predisposes them to adolescent trajectories that are negative. The children might end up having low attainment in their future occupations, poor medical conditions, as well as post-traumatic disorders leading to drug and substance abuse (Williams, 2007). After being admitted to the foster homes in our city, the children might experience the psychological effects resulting from the violence making it difficult for them to concentrate on their learning in the new schools. Being in a stage where the children improve their language mastery, their language ability in the new environment and their intelligence quotient might be affected. The girls may feel less likable compared to the other girls they meet in their foster homes (Williams, 2007). On the other hand, the boys may cave into intimidation restraining them from taking up manly roles and leading their lives with courage.
The children are going to fill in forms that give different details regarding their experiences and health concerns. As such, the program will aggregate and accumulate the different epidemiological studies that relate to the children who have experienced violence.
The program will also entail the identification and facilitation of relationship development among the providers of trauma services and the foster homes where the children will be admitted. As such, the refugee children will be served more effectively and in a timely manner. The clinicians will then continually offer screening, diagnosis, and treatment services in an established and systematic way.
Since some policies can be affected by the regulations of the state and the federal government, the program will convene a meeting with policy makers who will explore the barriers that could impede getting the necessary support from the government. As such, the foster homes will not bear the whole burden of bringing up the refugee children on their own.
The foster families will then be involved in a project that initiates public education on child trauma in case of health emergencies from the Nigerian children. The public education will also ensure that the foster families remain vigilant in preventing more traumatic experiences reoccurring to the children.
Finally, the children will be introduced to their new foster families and expectations set for them to collaborate with their new caregivers to help them alleviate their traumatic experiences.
As such, the intervention to the children’s needs and their incorporation to the new families to start new lives will be effective.
Several elements have been incorporated into the prevention program in order to foster resilience in the Nigerian children. The elements also help in breaking the cycle of violence that occurs in many children who have been exposed to violence. The elements are protective factors that increase the resistance to stress in the children. First, the intelligence of the child is important in understanding the situations as well as perceiving the results of different actions that lead to violence. With the experiences they undergo through in the refugee camps, intelligent children will ensure that the violence does not reoccur, thereby breaking the cycle of violence in them. Second, there is a need to increase the capacity of the children to regulate their emotions to enable them become constructive and overcome the feelings of revenge and thus breaking the cycle of violence (Woodhouse, 2008). Third, the presence of caring and competent social supporters such as the foster parents in their new homes will help in continued and monitored outgrowth out of the dark past and embrace a new beginning. Once the children experience caring guardians, they experience the peace they never had and aim to maintain peaceful living among all that they encounter.
It is difficult to reconcile the debate between cultural specificity and cultural universality. Cultural universality posits that all syndromes are true in different cultures. As such, the concepts supposes that the children from different cultures express their emotions in a similar fashion. On the other hand, cultural specificity argues that experiences and symptoms should be understood based on the culture of origin for the subject. The specificity concept emphasizes that there is a wider range of responses, especially to the traumatized children. However, to reconcile the two in line with the code of psychologists, I would treat the case of the Nigerian refugee children not as a cultural-based issue but as a natural reaction to violence. Additionally, I would focus on each child and interact with them on an individual level such that I can identify those whose responses are oriented toward the concept of cultural specificity and cultural universality.
While designing an intervention program for the Nigerian refugee children, it is important to consider the cultural traditions of the communities from which the children have come. Two of the Nigerian traditions that would help me boost my knowledge in designing a better intervention program include language and religious adaptations. The children must be given a platform to take off from in dealing with the language barriers. On the other hand, the religious beliefs of the children should not be twisted to conform to their new environment as that would result in cultural conflict that is at times hard to resolve.
Finally, there is a need to have some ethical considerations that I would need when intervening with the young children as victims of violence, more so in the line of culture. Ethical guidelines are important while making the decisions that affect the children (APA, 2010). For instance, it would not be ethical to place the children in environments that are not in line with their religious beliefs such as placing them in Christian foster homes while their religion is Islam. Additionally, once the children attain a decision-making age, it is necessary that they are allowed to make their own decision of either remaining in their foster homes or move out. The best model to use is the model of Childress and Beauchamp that contains the four principles of justice, autonomy, non-maleficence, and beneficence.
In conclusion, the responsibility to handle traumatized children and introducing them to new foster homes should not be handled casually (OHCHR, 1989). A lot of aspects discussed above should be considered. All the stakeholders involved should not only ensure the placement of children in the foster homes but also follow up on the recovery of the children and their adaptation to the new city.
References
American Psychological Association. (2010). Ethics and Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct 2010 Amendments. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR). (1989). Convention on the Rights of the Child. United Nations. Retrieved from http://www.ohchr.org/EN/ProfessionalInterest/Pages/CRC.aspx
Williams, R. (2007). The psychosocial consequences for children of mass violence, terrorism, and disasters. International Review of Psychiatry, 19 (3), 263-277
Woodhouse, B. (2006). Cleaning Up Toxic Violence: An EcoGenerist Paradigm. In N. E. Dowd, D. G. Singer, & R. F. Wilson (Eds.), Handbook of Children, Culture, and Violence (pp. 415-437). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd.
