Turkey is the top refugee-hosting country in the world, with more than three million registered Syrian refugees. An international research team was the first to document the educational and mental health needs of Syrian refugee children, finding that an overwhelming majority are not enrolled in school in Turkey, partly as a result of language barriers, and that about half suffer from Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and/or depression. The present study was designed as an innovative intervention using an online, game-based learning intervention for refugee children, named Project Hope. Data gathered from a controlled field experiment show significant improvements in Turkish language acquisition, coding, executive functioning, and overall sense of hopefulness. Implications for policy, practice, and research are discussed.
Multimodal co-therapy for unaccompanied minors: A qualitative study.
Background Unaccompanied 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