American journal of community psychology最新文献

Immigrants and refugees in the United States often face significant barriers in accessing social services, including mental health support, legal assistance, ESL or related education, housing, vocational training, workforce resources, transportation, and citizenship support. This article explores the strengths and challenges of community-based organizations welcoming centers (CBO WC) in Illinois that serve these populations, including people with disabilities, in culturally appropriate and inclusive ways. The Immigrant and Refugee-Led Capacity Development Network of Illinois, based at the University of Illinois Chicago, collaborated with the state's Office of Welcoming Centers to explore the service capacities of 17 CBO grantees. Thirty-three CBO staff members and 13 CBO leaders participated in online surveys designed to identify organizational strengths, assess needs, and explore opportunities to advance their missions. The findings show a range of strengths and abilities to assist immigrant and refugee communities and the limitations they face in addressing critical needs. Implications and future research approaches are discussed.

Despite the compounded adversities that displaced youth must navigate throughout their forced migration, they consistently exhibit steadfastness in caring for themselves and their families. Extant scholarship, however, often frames these individuals as needy and inept at informing the models of mental health care they are offered. In this study, we use semistructured interviews to learn from the experiences of Afghan refugee youth (N = 34; M age = 19; range 18-24) who were resettled in the United States after the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan in August of 2021 and explore their insights that can inform decolonial and equitable mental health services. Specifically, we elucidate their most salient sources of psychological distress, current coping mechanisms, and priorities for treatment, with a specific focus on the unique experiences of accompanied versus unaccompanied youth. Unaccompanied youth reported more frequent and intense sources of distress, including pre-resettlement (e.g., exposure to life-threatening sociopolitical conflicts) and post-resettlement challenges (e.g., limited access to basic resources and legal status precarity). Youth used faith-based, relationship-based, and ethnocultural-based mechanisms of coping. While 62% of participants reported doubts about the usefulness of mental health care, most of those who expressed an openness to treatment prioritized clinicians who have personal experience in navigating common challenges among refugees. We situate these findings within decolonial and intersectional theoretical frameworks that capture the nuances of Afghan refugee experiences and offer recommendations for ensuring refugee youth's rights to access equitable mental health services.

The dramatic rise in United States (U.S.) deportations demands a deeper understanding of their human costs. Qualitative research on the psychosocial impact of deportation is crucial to inform evidence-based policy decisions and mitigate the potential harms of these practices. This study examines the perceptions and experiences of Mexican nationals following deportation from the U.S., with a focus on the psychological and social consequences within a human rights framework. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 11 participants (nine men, two women) who resided in the U.S. for an average of 18 years, the study identifies key themes, including the violation of human rights and the traumatic nature of detention and deportation. These findings underscore the urgent need for policies and interventions that prioritize the well-being of individuals affected by deportation, including their families and communities in both the sending and receiving locations.

This study explores the experiences of Rohingya refugees in the United States following their forced migration and years as stateless refugees. Qualitative strengths-based phenomenological analysis was applied to individual interviews with eight key informants, all identified as Rohingya refugees. Interviews focused on experience and meaning-making concerning the complexities of Rohingya identity and belonging, rights and liberation in the United States, and the impact of generational, gender, and migration patterns. Five superordinate themes were initially identified. The first theme focused on the adaptive and resilient responses to institutionalized discrimination, emphasizing changes in Rohingya identity and values. The second theme examined how these adaptive responses influenced participants' perceptions of American culture and society. The final three themes underscored participants' reflections on their sense of agency, efforts to preserve Rohingya culture, and their journey to find belonging. These themes were further analyzed and discussed through a liberation framework. The findings demonstrate how Rohingya diaspora communities are impacted by their pre-, intermediary, and post-migration experiences as they create cultural roots and establish permanency, actively claim their agency, and promote liberation.

The Supporting Transition Resilience Of Newcomer Groups (STRONG; Hoover et al., 2019) program was developed to support mental health among newcomer refugee and immigrant students by (1) promoting positive adjustment during resettlement through a trauma-informed, strengths-based approach, contextualized to meet the needs of refugee and immigrant youth; and (2) improving access to services through school-based programming. The purpose of this study was to examine the acceptability and effectiveness of STRONG on the mental health and resilience of refugee and immigrant students using a group randomized waitlist control design. A sample of 64 newcomer students (M_age = 13.9, SD = 3.11; 41% female) was recruited to participate in the STRONG program, representing 19 different countries of origin and diverse ethnicities (44% Latiné; 34% Asian; 13% Middle Eastern/North African; 8% African/Black). Additionally, teachers or administrators from each participating STRONG school completed interviews, while group facilitators (e.g., clinicians and bilingual teachers) were invited to participate in focus groups. This study provides preliminary evidence that STRONG supports newcomer mental health, with students in the immediate treatment group showing reductions in anxiety/depression and externalizing symptoms compared to the waitlist. Qualitative findings provide additional support for the acceptability and benefits of this intervention. However, coping efficacy unexpectedly decreased, and several interactions with school type (e.g., high school vs. elementary) emerged. Additional research is warranted to further evaluate this promising intervention for newcomer youth.

The meaningful participation of young people from marginalized ethnic backgrounds in civic processes is central to the social cohesion of increasingly diverse liberal democracies, but their participation is compromised by a range of barriers resulting in decision-making that is disconnected from their lives. To address participation barriers, a group of young people from marginalized ethnic migrant backgrounds joined a team of researchers, social innovators, and community leaders to co-design and pilot an innovation to increase youth participation in policymaking. Delivered in phases over an 18-month period, the project followed an approach that combined social innovation and evaluation methods. The process revealed factors that help and hinder young people from marginalized ethnic backgrounds' genuine engagement in partnerships with adults. The project learnings informed principle-based guidelines for marginalized young people's civic engagement, which are offered to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers interested in inclusive youth participation.

Undocumented and DACAmented Latine high school graduates are enrolling in college at a low rate despite being eligible for in-state tuition in 25 U.S. states. More research is needed about the conditions that support students' journeys to and through their institutions. We conducted this qualitative study with nine Latine students who attended our small, public university in Washington to better understand how to support them throughout their educations and the inequities they confronted in K-12 schools that impact higher education experiences. Through applying the phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory in a thematic analysis of participants' interviews, we illuminated variable pathways to college, including differential access to supports and challenges in K-12 spaces, and how such supports/challenges may influence students' meaning-making and the coping strategies and identity development processes they engaged when confronting stressors in higher education (e.g., relying on strong academic identities, or, alternatively disengaging from school). Findings highlight the complex psychosocial processes Latine youth engage in throughout their academic journeys and ways to support them as they resist oppressive systems.

There is notable variation in state-level social policy exclusions for immigrant parents and their children. Little research has investigated how these exclusions impair the well-being of immigrant families. This study examined how state-level social policy exclusions for immigrants are associated with the well-being of immigrant parents and development of their children. A mixed methods approach guided by the transformative framework was used with quantitative analyses among a subsample of low-income immigrant parents from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B; N = 1550) and qualitative focus groups with immigrant parents of young children from two states with differing social policy contexts: California (n = 18) and New Hampshire (n = 17). Results indicated that low-income immigrant parents with young children experienced greater parenting-related stressors in states with more restrictive policies toward immigrants. Quantitative findings revealed that children born in more exclusionary states had lower reading skills at age 4 and kindergarten. Findings from the qualitative focus groups identified a core category centered on humanity being at the hands of the state, with the following themes: (1) salience of immigrant limitations; (2) state climate toward immigrants; and (3) social programs reduce stress, but access is variable and filled with barriers. Policy and practice implications are discussed.

Migrant youth from Latin America who arrive in the United States are faced with a social and political context that dehumanizes migrants of color. These anti-immigrant sentiments become reflected in federal and state policies that deny migrants rights to freedom and safety. The present paper examined how the U.S. immigration context informed migrant young adults' structural analysis of immigration policies and rhetoric (critical reflection) and actions to challenge exclusionary immigration-related policies and rhetoric (critical action). We further examined facilitators and barriers to action. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with migrant young adults from Latin America living in Virginia (N = 30; M = 20.93; SD = 2.03; 53% female). We employed constructivist grounded theory strategies to analyze the data. Findings showed that migrant young adults offered a range of structural and individual-level attributions for unjust immigration policies. For some migrant young adults, their critical reflection informed decisions to engage in critical actions. Yet, many migrant young adults also noted constraints that impeded their engagement. By more thoroughly understanding migrant young adults' critical reflection and factors that may facilitate or impede action, researchers and practitioners may be better positioned to support migrant young adults who seek to dismantle systems of oppression.

This study expanded on the existing literature by examining the unique associations between maternal religious socialization, as a form of cultural socialization, along with civic socialization practices, and Muslim American emerging adults' civic engagement. In addition, the mediating role of Muslim American emerging adults' religious identity in the association between maternal socialization practices and their civic attitudes and behaviors were assessed. Participants included 329 self-identified Muslim American emerging adults (Mage = 21.4, SDage = 1.9, 63% female). Path analysis results revealed indirect associations between maternal religious socialization and civic behaviors through religious identity private regard and a direct link between maternal civic socialization and civic attitudes. Thus, Muslim American emerging adults whose mothers engaged in transmitting their heritage values, beliefs, and virtues reported a greater sense of pride about their religious group and subsequent higher engagement in informal helping and lower engagement in political actions. Additionally, discussions about social and political issues with their mothers directly fostered Muslim American emerging adults' civic responsibility. Our findings revealed specificity in how civic engagement can be promoted and provided insights into efforts to build civic capacity for minoritized emerging adults.