Schools and family may be key for the wellbeing of refugee kids in Australia

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-04-07 01:00

Australia; International

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

Refugee kids in Australia generally adapt well to their resettled lives with high levels of physical health, familiarity with English, parenting warmth, and good engagement in school, but emotional and behavioural problems are still more common in this group compared to other kids their age, according to new research. The study found that while exposure to potentially traumatic events before coming to Australia was one factor that was linked to poorer psychosocial health, there were other factors that occurred in Australia that could impact refugee youth’s mental health. The study showed that once in Australia, kids who experienced family conflict, who were treated unfairly, or who struggled with English also had lower levels of psychosocial health. School and family were the main sources of support for refugee kids and those who did better at school and who engaged in extracurricular activities tended to have fewer emotional and behavioural adjustment difficulties.

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Research JAMA, Web page

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Sun Yat-sen University, Luohu District Maternity and Children Health Care Hospital, China

Funder: We acknowledge the funders of the BNLA project, the Australian Government Department of Immigration and Border Protection, and the Australian Government Department of Social Services, which administer the BNLA project.We also acknowledge the Australian Institute of Family Studies, which undertook the design, administration, and fieldwork of the BNLA project.We also acknowledge the support of the program grant 1073041 from the National Health and Medical Research Council in funding the child component of BNLAwave 3.

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