Working with Young Children Who are Victims of Armed Conflict

Abstract

Young children are particularly vulnerable to war and armed conflict. Although the longterm priority is always to try to unravel and reduce violence and conflict, in the short term some interventions may reduce suffering. In this article the authors report on recent evidence on psychosocial interventions designed to mitigate the impact of armed conflict on young children's development. A systematic review method was used to explore evaluations of interventions addressing the cognitive and psychosocial development of young children directly affected by armed conflict. In general the literature suggests therapeutic interventions drawing on the concept of post-traumatic stress disorder run the risk of imposing cultural norms from the global North. In contrast, more general psychosocial interventions and normalisation routines are likely to be more effective. But recent reviews also suggest that evaluation of interventions with children affected by armed conflict is weak. More robust evidence is badly needed.

“Sometimes my mind, it has to analyze two things”: Identity development and adaptation for refugee and newcomer adolescents.

“…Studies that focus on refugees and migrants under 18 have uncovered a broad range of “risk” and “protective” factors that include internal psychological (e.g., intelligence, locus of control, and temperament), family and community (e.g., caregiver mental health, quality of attachment to caregivers, and sources and quality of social support), and sociocultural (e.g., institutional integration and strengths of cultural/religious belief systems) influences (Barenbaum et al, 2004; Betancourt et al, 2010; Betancourt & Khan, 2008; Lloyd & Penn, 2010; Weine et al, 2014; Wilkinson, 2002). These influences can be positive or negative.…”

“…Unfortunately, relatively little is known about the impact of resettlement on families and children’s development. Existing research suggests that the abrupt systemic changes brought about by the traumas of war and forced displacement impact multiple areas of children’s lives (Barenbaum, Ruchkin, & Schwab-Stone, 2004; Lloyd & Penn, 2010). The complex, systemic issues faced by a growing number of refugee and migrant children have been subject to analyses using human ecological models (Betancourt, Agnew-Blais, Gilman, Williams, & Ellis, 2010; Betancourt & Khan, 2008; Boothby, Strang, & Wessells, 2006; Triplehorn & Chen, 2006); however, limited research explores the everyday experiences of children to give these models meaning.…”

Implementation research for early childhood development programming in humanitarian contexts

“…Our database search yielded only four studies that met the search criteria (see Table ): (1) a group‐based psychosocial intervention for mothers of young children (average age 5.5) in postconflict Bosnia; (2) an intervention combining mother–baby groups and home visits for mothers of malnourished infants (aged 6–30 months) through an emergency feeding program for internally displaced people in Northern Uganda; (3) an intervention aimed at reducing young children's stress (aged 2–7) living in a sheltered camp during the second Israel–Lebanon war through the introduction of a stuffed animal (the Huggy‐Puppy); and (4) a parenting program comprising group‐based sessions and a home visit in postconflict Liberia targeting caregivers of children aged 3–7 . Additionally, Lloyd and Penn's systematic review of interventions focused on young children (0–8) who are victims of armed conflict conducted in 2010 identified, in addition to studies (1) and (3) listed above, a dissertation study conducted by Paardekooper in 2002 that included a randomized controlled trial of two different psychosocial group‐based interventions for South Sudanese refugees (ages 5–16) living in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia …”

“…33,34 Additionally, Lloyd and Penn's systematic review of interventions focused on young children (0-8) who are victims of armed conflict conducted in 2010 identified, in addition to studies (1) and (3) listed above, a dissertation study conducted by Paardekooper in 2002 that included a randomized controlled trial of two different psychosocial groupbased interventions for South Sudanese refugees (ages 5-16) living in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 35,36 The review of gray literature relevant to ECD in humanitarian settings focused primarily on descriptive accounts of program models, 37 such as UNICEF's ECD kits containing play materials and facilitator guides, formal and informal preschools in refugee settings, among others. A few notable exceptions included a small-scale, qualitative evaluation of the distribution of UNICEF's ECD kits in postearthquake Haiti; 38 a study of Aga Khan Foundation's (AKF) preschools in Northern Afghanistan comparing school readiness prior to grade 1 and academic achievement scores at the end of grade 1 for children who attended AKF-supported preschools compared with children from matched villages who did not attend preschool, d which found significant differences between the two groups and large effect sizes; 39 and Save the Children's cross-sectional study of community-based Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD)-preschool programs in Faryab, Saripol, Kandahar, and Kabul provinces of Afghanistan, which found significant improvements in children's developmental scores for the participants the ECCD program, compared with children d The AKF report did not explicitly mention the reason that children in the matched villages did not attend preschool.…”

Palestinian Refugee Children: A Review of the Literature

“…Scholarly attempts to study refugee children through a psychological lens are largely informed by Erikson's developmental theory (Lustig et al, 2003, p. 25). In a literature review of psychological studies focusing on refugee children between 1990-2003, the era defined by a psychological perspective in research on Palestinian refugee children, authors expressed the inefficiency in researching refugee children through a psychological framework, assuming development, normality, and psychopathology to be culturally embedded (Epstein & DiNicaola, 1997;Lloyd & Penn, 2010;Kinzie, 2016). A critique of development theories is their cultural relativism and reliance upon Western, middle-class constructions of childhood and propriety, with questionable cross-cultural generalizability.…”