A Qualitative Evaluation of a Mother and Child Center Providing Psychosocial Support to Newly Arrived Female Refugees in a Registration and Reception Center in Germany

Abstract

Female refugees are frequently exposed to sexualized, gender-based violence and harassment before, during, and after their flight. Yet female refugee-specific care and protection needs are rarely addressed in host countries. This study aimed to evaluate a mother and child center (MUKI) for female refugees in a reception and registration center in Germany. In 2017, we conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 16 female refugees attending the MUKI and with its five main staff members. We asked the participants about the MUKI’s relevance, encountered difficulties, and suggestions for improvement. The interviewees appreciated the MUKI’s sheltered environment, care services, and socializing opportunities, as well as its women-only concept. Overall, the participants saw overexertion, social engagement-related difficulties, and the MUKI’s noisy environment as key attendance barriers. Interviewed staff primarily reported problems regarding the working conditions, including the high staff and attendee turnover and low general service awareness. The participants advocated an expansion of the MUKI program. The MUKI project underlines that providing newly arrived, vulnerable female refugees with sheltered surroundings and psychosocial services is an essential step toward addressing female refugees’ specific care needs.

Refugee mental health and the role of place in the Global North countries: A scoping review

“…Table 4 shows characteristics primarily, but not exclusively, discussed in the referenced studies. Additionally, access to green spaces and outdoor physical activities ( Biglin, 2020 ); material and social aspects of institutions ( Brenman, 2020 ; Leiler et al, 2019 ; Zehetmair et al, 2021 ); built and natural environment, local history and culture ( El-Bialy and Mulay, 2015 ; Grønseth, 2001 ; Herslund and Paulgaard, 2021 ); and ethnic density ( Finnvoqld and Ugreninov, 2018 ) were included as important place characteristics relevant to refugee mental health.…”

“…Three explored refugee place-making, healing and wellbeing practices through the concept of therapeutic landscapes broadly conceptualised as places “where the environment and human perception interact and produce a therapeutic atmosphere” ( Biglin, 2020 , p. 1; El-Bialy and Mulay; 2015 ; Sampson and Gifford, 2010 ). A few studies explored sense of wellbeing as both subjective experience and an individual psychological condition ( Glorius et al, 2020 ; Grønseth, 2001 ; Ziersch et al, 2020 , 2017 ); resiliency and role of “environments to facilitate the navigations of individuals for the resources they need to cope with adversity” ( Liu et al, 2020 , p. 2); experiences of psychosocial support and mental healthcare ( Brenman, 2020 ; Zehetmair et al, 2021 ). In addition, some unpacked feelings of stress and insecurity ( Herslund and Paulgaard, 2021 ); understandings of depression and psychological distress in relation to settlement experiences ( Fozdar, 2009 ); nervousness, insomnia, loss of appetite and social isolation ( Miller et al, 2002 ); geographic isolation and experiences of family violence ( Murray et al, 2019 ); loss of social cohesion and self-reported psychological distress, worry, and anxiety ( Warfa et al, 2006 ).…”

“…Employment had most of the impact by reducing the odds of major depression by a significant amount. Zehetmair et al (2021) A study of the mother and child psychosocial support centre for refugee women located at a reception and registration centre in Germany. Germany Qualitative Refugee adults (n = 16) Psychosocial care centre; reception and registration centre.…”

Maternal mental healthcare needs of refugee women in a State Registration and Reception Centre in Germany: A descriptive study

“… b e.g., support offers provided by churches, mother–child facilities (Zehetmair et al 2021), counselling and outreach centres or charitable organisations such as the Caritas. …”

“…The most commonly applied interventions were trauma‐ or resource‐orientated, followed by psychoeducational‐ and social counselling‐orientated interventions and specific interventions, including crisis support and couples‐, brief‐ or phone‐consultations and accompaniment to authorities. Furthermore, patients were referred to other care providers outside the PHV, including specialists, midwives, Mother–Child facilities (German: Mutter‐Kind‐Haus; MUKI (Zehetmair et al., 2021)), support offers provided by churches, counselling and outreach centres, as well as charitable organisations such as the German Caritas association, when necessary. As so many women met all the diagnostic criteria for PTSD (32.5%) or showed subsyndromal PTSD (17.5%), it is not surprising that trauma‐specific interventions focusing on resources and stabilisation were the most applied.…”