Addressing Mental Health Disparities in Refugee Children Through Family and Community-Based Prevention

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of a family-based intervention program and the impact it has on outcomes of parent-child relationships, family functioning, and child mental health among Bhutanese and Somali Bantu refugees in New England. The program uses a Community Based Participatory Research approach, emphasizing strong community engagement, support from community advisory boards, and the use of refugee community health workers to implement the home-visiting Family Strengthening Intervention (FSI). The FSI uses a strengths-based approach to focus on prevention, resilience, and overcoming barriers, while improving linkages to important community resources. The program is currently in its pilot phase (n=80 families) and preparing for scaling-up (n=300 families) with adaptations based on preliminary findings and lessons learned. A mixed-methods design is used to assess the effectiveness of the FSI and inform next stages of the research. This chapter presents preliminary findings of formative work and from the pilot phase of the program.