Occupational Therapy Psychosocial Interventions for Middle-Childhood Aged Refugee Children in High Income Countries: Focus Group Perspectives

Abstract

Refugee children are at risk of developing psychosocial problems. Occupational therapy practitioners can address some of these problems. Focus groups were held with 17 occupational therapy participants to identify interventions promoting refugee children’s psychosocial wellbeing in middle childhood in high income countries. Four themes emerged: (1) Making the most with what you have, (2) The child in their various environments, (3) Occupational Therapy lens helping to build a bridge between old and new lives, and (4) Sensitivity matters/considerations. Findings indicate research is needed to identify intervention effectiveness and increase use of macro-level interventions. interventions.

Keywords:

• Children
• forced migration
• intervention
• psychosocial

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all the study participants for their time, generosity of responses, and their valuable insights, and Mr Volker Paelke for his help with the figures in this paper.

Author contributions

Concettina Trimboli: Conceptualization, Data collection, Data curation, Data analysis, Validation, Methodology, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Project administration.

Caroline Fleay: Conceptualization, Data analysis, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision.

Lauren Parsons: Conceptualization, Data analysis, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision.

Angus Buchanan: Conceptualization, Data collection, Data analysis, Writing – Review & Editing, Supervision.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Refugees are defined as people being outside their country of habitual residence, who are unable to return to their country of origin due to a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion United Nations General Assembly (1951).

2 A developmentally appropriate form of play designed for children experiencing social, emotional, behavioral, and relational disorders.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Research Training Program (RTP) Stipend Scholarship.