Despite growing evidence of the effects of social media on the mental health of adolescents, there is still a dearth of empirical research into how adolescents themselves perceive social media, especially as knowledge resource, or how they draw upon the wider social and media discourses to express a viewpoint. Accordingly, this article contributes to this scarce literature. Six focus groups took place over 3 months with 54 adolescents aged 11-18 years, recruited from schools in Leicester and London (UK). Thematic analysis suggested that adolescents perceived social media as a threat to mental wellbeing and three themes were identified: (1) it was believed to cause mood and anxiety disorders for some adolescents, (2) it was viewed as a platform for cyberbullying and (3) the use of social media itself was often framed as a kind of 'addiction'. Future research should focus on targeting and utilising social media for promoting mental wellbeing among adolescents and educating youth to manage the possible deleterious effects.

War-torn children are particularly vulnerable through direct trauma exposure as well through their parents' responses. This study thus investigated the association between trauma exposure and children's mental health, and the contribution of parent-related factors in this association. A cross-sectional study with 263 Syrian refugee children-parent dyads was conducted in Turkey. The Stressful Life Events Questionnaire (SLE), General Health Questionnaire, Parenting Stress Inventory (PSI-SF), Impact of Events Scale for Children (CRIES-8), and Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire were used to measure trauma exposure, parental psychopathology, parenting-related stress, children's post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), and mental health problems, respectively. Trauma exposure significantly accounted for unique variance in children's PTSS scores. Parental psychopathology significantly contributed in predicting children's general mental health, as well as emotional and conduct problems, after controlling for trauma variables. Interventions need to be tailored to refugee families' mental health needs. Trauma-focused interventions should be applied with children with PTSD; whilst family-based approaches targeting parents' mental health and parenting-related stress should be used in conjunction with individual interventions to improve children's comorbid emotional and behavioural problems.

Background Child mental health services and related agencies are faced with an increasing challenge in responding to the influx of refugee children around the world. There is strong evidence on the prevalence and complexity of these children's mental health problems and broader needs. Aims To review the research literature on risk and protective factors, and associated mental health interventions for refugee children. Methods Peer‐reviewed studies were included for the period 2004–2017; if they included refugee, asylum‐seeking or internally displaced children under 18 years; and adopted a quantitative design. Vulnerability and protective factors for refugee children were considered in this context, followed by the respective types of interventions at pre‐, peri‐ and postmigration stage, and across high‐ and low‐/middle‐income countries. Eighty‐two peer‐reviewed studies fulfilled the selection criteria. Results The existing body of literature is largely based on identifying risk factors among children with mental health problems and predominantly designing trauma‐focused interventions to reduce their symptomatic distress. Recent research and services have gradually shifted to a broader and dynamic resilience‐building approach based on ecological theory, that is at child, family, school, community and societal level. There is increasing evidence for the implementation and effectiveness of multimodal interventions targeting all these levels, despite the methodological constraints in their evaluation. Conclusions In high‐income countries, child mental health services need to collaborate with all agencies in contact with refugee children, establish joint care pathways, and integrate trauma‐focused interventions with family and community approaches. In low‐ and middle‐income countries, where specialist resources are sparse, resilience‐building should aim at maximising and upskilling existing capacity. A six‐dimensional psychosocial model that applies to other children who experience complex trauma is proposed.

Although there has been increasing attention on the impact of risk and resilience factors on refugee children’s mental health, there has been limited evidence on the role of parental factors to inform interventions, and this predominantly relies on adult reports. The aim was to investigate the relationship between perceived parenting styles and attachment relationships and child mental health, as reported by 322 Syrian refugee minors aged between 8 and 17 years in Turkey. Child-rated scales included the Children Revised Impact of Event Scale–8 (CRIES-8), Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), Security Scale and Egna Minnen Betraffande Uppfostran for Children (EMBU-C), and were used as measures of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), general mental health problems, attachment relationships and perceived parenting styles, respectively. Children with secure maternal and paternal attachment perceived their parents as less rejecting, while children with secure paternal attachment also reported their parents as emotionally warmer. Attachment relationships significantly contributed in predicting PTSD after controlling for age and gender, while conduct problems were predicted by lack of emotional warmth, rejection and over-protection by both parents, in addition to insecure attachment relationships. Refugee children’s views are essential in establishing their needs and planning interventions. These should address both the impact of trauma and current family relationships.

According to the definition of the Refugee Convention, a refugee is 'someone who is unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion' (UN General Assembly, 1951). It is well established that refugees, including children, have high prevalence rates of mental health problems (Cayabyab, O'Reilly, Murphy, & O'Gorman, 2020). These include post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety and behavioural problems (Bronstein & Montgomery, 2011). Without intervention, these child mental health problems are likely to continue, especially when compounded by post-migration stressors (Tam, Houlihan, & Melendez-Torres, 2015). The majority of mental health studies have been carried out with children seeking asylum or being resettled in high-income countries (HIC-Fazel & Betancourt, 2018), despite the fact that the greatest proportion of refugees are resettled in low-and middle-income countries (LMIC-UNHCR, 2018). This particularly applies to the population influx from Syria in recent years (Javanbakht, Rosenberg, Haddad, & Arfken, 2018). Child mental health problems are associated with a range of risk factors pre-, during and post-migration (Reed, Fazel, Jones, Panter-Brick, & Stein, 2012). Whilst earlier research predominantly focused on the impact of war-induced trauma, hence research on trauma-reprocessing interventions, more recently, there has been increasing attention on post-migration risk factors whilst children settle into their host communities (Eruyar, Huemer, & Vostanis, 2017). These factors include poverty, parenting and family functioning, parental mental health, cultural and language barriers, peer relationships, school and community exclusion (Bronstein & Montgomery, 2011; Reed et al., 2012). Likewise in the general population, individual factors were also found to be important in explaining mental health problems of refugee children. Older age, being female, biological predisposition and maladaptive