Pilot Wellness Program With Adapted Social–Emotional Learning and COVID-19 Curriculum for Refugee Youth

Abstract

Refugee children are less likely than their non-refugee peers to receive timely diagnoses and treatment for mental and/or behavioral health problems, despite facing multiple risk factors including potential exposure to trauma during premigration, migration, and postmigration experiences. Social–Emotional Learning offers preventive mental health education for children through well-established, evidenced-based curricula. Although there are clear benefits of Social–Emotional Learning curricula, which can help children achieve long-term success emotionally and academically, Social–Emotional Learning curricula are not easily accessible for refugee children, often because of language and socioeconomic barriers. In this pilot study, we evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of an adapted Social–Emotional Learning program that included culturally specific, multilingual, trauma-informed wellness, and physical education during the COVID-19 pandemic: EMPOWER (Emotions Program Outside the Clinic With Wellness Education for Refugees). We used the Intervention Mapping framework which guided the (1) planning, (2) program development, and (3) mixed-method evaluation of the feasibility and acceptability of the EMPOWER pilot. We found that this adaptation was well-received by Afghan refugee families and that COVID-19 safety measures were well-understood after participation. Challenges emerged around videoconferencing connectivity and around finding a common language for discussing emotions. Future iterations of the program and evaluations will require continued partnerships with community members and organizations. As we continue and expand EMPOWER, we aim to evaluate short-term improvement in Social–Emotional Learning competence as well as long-term mental and behavioral health outcomes for children and their families.

Processes for culturally adapting behavioral health interventions for people with refugee backgrounds: A scoping review

“…Authors offered different explanations for why they believed CA increased the efficacy of EBIs. First, CA was described as a strategy for making EBIs grounded in Western, Eurocentric cultures more acceptable to people from non‐Western backgrounds (e.g., Cognitive Behavioral Therapy [Hinton & Jalal, 2019] or Social Emotional Learning [Rosenberg et al, 2022]). For example, Hinton and Jalal (2019), Kananian et al (2020) and Lindegaard et al (2019) made adaptations to CBT to “increase the client's belief that treatment will be effective” (Hinton & Jalal, 2019, p. 499).…”

“…In addition to citing existing research to justify the need for CA, a few authors described adapting specific interventions in response to needs assessment findings or community requests for adapted interventions (Ballard et al, 2018, Rosenberg et al, 2022, Self‐Brown, 2022). For example, Self‐Brown et al (2022) utilized a survey to establish that a culturally adapted parenting intervention was needed.…”

“…For example, Self‐Brown et al (2022) utilized a survey to establish that a culturally adapted parenting intervention was needed. Rosenberg et al (2022) utilized findings from a needs assessment, and Ballard et al (2018) project emerged from a needs assessment in the K'nyaw community that identified the need for culturally relevant parenting support. Bahu (2019) described building on information gathered from discussions and workshops at temples and client and facilitators' experiences over a number of years.…”

“We will need to build up the atmosphere of trust again”: Service providers’ perceptions of experiences of COVID-19 amongst resettled refugee adolescents

“…The closure of schools and reduction in youth programs during the COVID-19 pandemic intensified challenges faced by service providers in supporting students' engagement [52,53]. In addition to challenges experienced by all students during the COVID-19 pandemic, refugee students face unique struggles with integration and engagement due to pre-existing educational challenges, potential trauma exposure, and stressors related to the resettlement process [54,55]. Marginalized communities like refugee students have limited opportunities to form trustful relationships that could support their educational needs [56].…”

A Systematic Review of Evidence-Based Interventions for Afghan Refugee Mental Health: A Cultural Adaptation Analysis

“…We considered interventions that focused on any form of psychosocial outcomes, including systematically defined mental health disorders as well as general measures of well-being. We excluded any study that did not include a concrete outcome measure (e.g., Rosenberg et al, 2022). Importantly, we only included studies where Afghan participants composed the majority of the study ethnic composition-defined as over ⅔ or 67% Afghans.…”