Transnational family relationships in a context of exile-related family separation: The role of intra-family support in unaccompanied refugee adolescents’ mental health and posttrauma rehabilitation

With a growing influx of refugees in western European resettlement countries in the past years, a body of studies documents how minor refugees are an at-risk group for mental health problems, with an increased prevalence of psychiatric disorders showing particularly high rates of PTSD and depression in unaccompanied refugee minors (URM) who experience long-term separation from parental caregiving figures. Simultaneously, however, studies consistently document refugees’ limited mental health care access and participation, hereby putting constraints on positive adaptation of URM in resettlement. Reflecting this public health issue, UPC KU Leuven and partners joined forces to set-up a specialized psychiatric transcultural trauma treatment program for minor refugees, Psy-TR3, where URM are expected to be a significant part of the patient population. In studies on URM mental health, intra-family support in transnational family relationships is documented as core protective factor supporting adaptation in coping with prolonged separation and the sequelae of traumatic and exile-related stressors. However, studies document how these transnational family relationships may operate as a source of distress, where complex migration- and trauma-related processes may impede the provision of intra-family support by transnational parental caregivers. Embedded within Psy-TR3, this study aims at an explorative analysis of the role of transnational parent-child relationships in URM’s mental health and posttrauma rehabilitation. In a design with a concurrent component analysis and a naturalistic, multiple mixed method single-case study, the mixed-method study operationalizes core treatment components of Psy-TR3 and assesses feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary indications of working mechanisms and outcome of including transnational family sessions as systemic component of Psy-TR3. Through this mixed-method study, the study aims to develop an initial, explorative evidence-base that can lay ground for further systematic process- and outcome evaluations of Psy-TR3 and to add to the current need to strengthen evidence-based treatment for refugees.