What Strategies Support the Mental Health of Unaccompanied Refugee Minors?

There is strong evidence that therapeutic strategies grounded in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) reduce mental health symptoms among unaccompanied refugee minors (URMs).

▪ Three systematic reviews, three scoping reviews, and five suggestive studies highlight the reduction of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma-related symptoms and other forms of mental health distress when interventions are grounded in CBT.

Substantial evidence supports group therapy as a strategy to reduce barriers and improve mental health outcomes.

▪ A systematic review noted that group therapy, where multiple URMs simultaneously participate in an intervention, improved overall engagement and outcomes, regardless of the setting and its combination with other interventions. Group therapy also reduces barriers to continued engagement with interventions, such as stigma and language, while increasing trust and community building.

There is strong evidence of the positive impact of culturally sensitive social support systems, such as care arrangements, in improving outcomes for URMs.

▪ Two systematic reviews indicate that URMs had better mental health outcomes when placed in an ethnically matched care placement setting (i.e., a URM living with at least one other person who identifies with the same ethnicity). Furthermore, the mental health outcomes of URMs are poorer if they have experienced trauma; reside in independent, lone, or large detention institutions; or if they are female.

Growing evidence encourages adapting treatment approaches and implementation delivery according to the unique needs of URMs.

▪  A suggestive study underscored the importance of incorporating religion and spirituality into interventions to enable the involvement of URMs in therapy and its role in helping them cope with trauma.

▪  Two suggestive studies and one systematic review promote the implementation of trauma-informed, culturally adapted interventions within school-based settings.

▪  A suggestive study highlighted the potential of multimodal co-therapy, which encompasses cultural, biological, narrative, and institutional approaches to improving URM mental health outcomes.