Visibility, resilience, vulnerability in young migrants

Abstract

Young unaccompanied asylum seekers have been portrayed as vulnerable, resilient or both. Those granted residency in Europe are offered support by health and social care systems, but once they leave the care system to make independent lives, what part can these services play? Our review of research with migrants who have been in care in Sweden and the UK found evidence of unmet need, but little research describing their own views of services. The limited published evidence, supplemented by interviews with care-leavers in a UK inner city suggests that in defining health needs, young people emphasize housing, education, employment and friendship over clinical or preventative services. Some felt well-supported while others described feeling vulnerable, anxious, angry or sad. These experiences, if linked with the insensitivity of even one professional, could lower young people's expectations of healthcare to the extent that they avoided contact with service providers. In supporting young migrants' resilience to meet everyday challenges, friendly support from peers, carers and professionals was important. They needed determined advocacy at key moments. The different challenges for the Swedish and UK health and welfare systems along with the resilience/vulnerability trajectory are described. KeywordsUnaccompanied asylum seekers healthcare services children and youth social care resilience expectations migration advocacy Visibility, resilience, vulnerability, Bradby et al, https://doi

Universalism, diversity and norms: gratitude, healthcare and welfare chauvinism

“…Skin colour and wearing a head-scarf made others feel themselves to be part of a visible minority. Migrants describe their own sense of being vulnerably visible, which is particularly painful when their entitlement to access health services is contested (Bradby et al, 2017;Padilla et al, 2018). Women, and particularly those with children, are often seen as a burden on the public system by failing to speak the local national language or to follow normative dress codes or dietary habits (Gedalof, 2009;Yuval-Davis, Anthias, & Campling, 1989).…”

“…Making migrants the scapegoat for the failure of public services was a disputed aspect of Europe's response to the refugee crisis of 2015-2016 and of the UK Brexit referendum of 2016. Contesting vulnerable migrants' eligibility to receive healthcare affects individuals' willingness to engage with providers (Bradby, Liabo, Ingold, & Roberts, 2017). In order to understand the expression of gratitude for inadequate health services by women of migrant background, the undermining of undeserving migrants' eligibility to claim healthcare needs to be taken into account.…”

Child Migrant Health: The Role of Pediatric Surgery in the Migrants' Route across Balkan Countries to North-West Europe

“…Compared with the resident children population where orthopaedic and surgery trauma is the cause of hospitalization for 20% in these two hospitals, this trauma rate in migrant children is significantly higher. Ullrich et al 12 also stated that migrants showed a more severe illness picture compared with nonmigrants, and Bradby et al 13 published that young unaccompanied asylum seekers have been portrayed as vulnerable, resilient, or both; therefore, they avoid contact with health-service providers. This might be a reason why despite the fact that a large number of migrant children are crossing or staying in Serbia, a very small number of them have sought medical help, in most cases, only when it was unavoidable.…”

Anatomy of a crisis: governing youth mobility through vulnerability

“…The meanings of vulnerability likewise shift across contexts (Mai 2010). Some youths, such as Afghan or Iraqi teenagers, are seen as 'too resilient' or too agentive, and thus antithetical to vulnerable children needing care and protection (Bradby et al 2019). In spite of claims to the inherent or innate vulnerabilities of children, discourses about some young people may not recognise them as children at all.…”