Finding Keys: A Systematic Review of Barriers and Facilitators for Refugee Children’s Disclosure of Their Life Stories
Date
2020
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Trauma, Violence, & Abuse
Abstract
The systematic review presented in this article aims to reveal what supports and hampers refugee children in telling their, often
traumatic, life stories. This is important to ensure that migration decisions are based on reliable information about the children’s
needs for protection. A systematic review was conducted in academic journals, collecting all available scientific knowledge about
the disclosure of life stories by refugee minors in the context of social work, guardianship, foster care, asylum procedures, mental
health assessment, and therapeutic settings. The resulting 39 studies were thoroughly reviewed with reference to what factors
aided or hampered the refugee children’s disclosure of their life stories. The main barriers to disclosure were feelings of mistrust
and self-protection from the side of the child and disrespect from the side of the host community. The facilitators for disclosing life
stories were a positive and respectful attitude of the interviewer, taking time to build trust, using nonverbal methods, providing
agency to the children, and involving trained interpreters. Social workers, mentors, and guardians should have time to build trust
and to help a young refugee in revealing the life story before the minor is heard by the migration authorities. The lack of
knowledge on how refugee children can be helped to disclose their experiences is a great concern because the decision in the
migration procedure is based on the story the child is able to disclose.
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Keywords
International Resources, Netherlands, research, disclosure, children, community violence, memory, trauma, war, cultural context, violence
Citation
Van Os, E. C. C., Zijlstra, A. E., Knorth, E. J., Post, W. J., & Kalverboer, M. E. (2020). Finding keys: A systematic review of barriers and facilitators for refugee children’s disclosure of their life stories. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 21(2), 242-260.