Thriving, Managing, and Struggling: A Mixed Methods Study of Adolescent African Refugees’ Psychosocial Adjustment

Abstract

Objectives The purpose of this mixed method study was to characterize the patterns of psychosocial adjustment among adolescent African refugees in U.S. resettlement. Methods A purposive sample of 73 recently resettled refugee adolescents from Burundi and Liberia were followed for two years and qualitative and quantitative data was analyzed using a mixed methods exploratory design. Results Protective resources identified were the family and community capacities that can promote youth psychosocial adjustment through: 1) Finances for necessities; 2) English proficiency; 3) Social support networks; 4) Engaged parenting; 5) Family cohesion; 6) Cultural adherence and guidance; 7) Educational support; and, 8) Faith and religious involvement. The researchers first inductively identified 19 thriving, 29 managing, and 25 struggling youths based on review of cases. Univariate analyses then indicated significant associations with country of origin, parental education, and parental employment. Multiple regressions indicated that better psychosocial adjustment was associated with Liberians and living with both parents. Logistic regressions showed that thriving was associated with Liberians and higher parental education, managing with more parental education, and struggling with Burundians and living parents. Qualitative analysis identified how these factors were proxy indicators for protective resources in families and communities. Conclusion These three trajectories of psychosocial adjustment and six domains of protective resources could assist in developing targeted prevention programs and policies for refugee youth. Further rigorous longitudinal mixed-methods study of adolescent refugees in U.S. resettlement are needed.

Fostering Resilience: Protective Agents, Resources, and Mechanisms for Adolescent Refugees’ Psychosocial Well-Being

“…The sample consisted of 37 Liberian and 36 Burundian adolescent refugees with comparable numbers of Burundians and Liberians in Chicago and Boston. Based on a previous publication, there was no statistically significant difference between the psychosocial well-being of the adolescents resettled in Boston verses Chicago (Weine et al, 2013). The entire adolescent refugee population could be considered at-risk for psychosocial difficulties due to their exposure to trauma and displacement.…”

“…A prior study characterized the patterns of psychosocial adjustment among adolescent African refugees in U.S. resettlement (Weine et al, 2013). A purposive sample of 73 recently resettled refugee adolescents from Burundi and Liberia were followed for two years and qualitative and quantitative data was analyzed using a mixed methods exploratory design.…”

Human Thriving

“…Some of these enablers apply across the majority of contexts (e.g., the opportunity for challenge), whereas others are more context specific (e.g., employer support). Examples of contextual enablers identified in the thriving literature include, but are not limited to, a challenge environment (see, e.g., O'Leary & Ickovics, 1995), attachment and trust (see, e.g., Carmeli & Spreitzer, 2009), family support (see, e.g., Weine et al, 2013), and colleague/employer support (see, e.g., Paterson et al, 2014).…”

“…Although recent research has challenged the role of parental factors in FTT (see, e.g., Emond, Drewett, Blair, & Emmett, 2007;Wright & Birks, 2000), it is apparent that the quality of parental care and the nature of interactions between the parent and child are important for an infant's positive growth and development (see, e.g., Connell & Prinz, 2002;Poehlmann & Fiese, 2001). This parental role also appears to extend to enabling thriving in adolescents, where parents may provide guidance in relation to an adolescent's schooling (see, e.g., Theokas et al, 2005) and financial support for the child to access facilitative opportunities and resources (see, e.g., Weine et al, 2013). More recent investigations have broadened extant research on family support to include the role of spouses in promoting thriving (see, Sarkar & Fletcher, 2014;Tomlinson, Feeney, & Van Vleet, 2016).…”

Refugee Family Voices: Shelter Needs in Iraqi Kurdistan

“…Mixed methodologies have been used on different occasions in studies with refugees, however, particularly in medical research (e.g. Strijk et al, 2011; Merrill Weine et al, 2013; Collins et al, 2017) and are also widely used in social research and field research more generally (Plano Clark and Creswell, 2008; Creswell, 2009; Plano Clark and Invankova, 2015).…”