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Optimising refugee children’s health/wellbeing in preparation for primary and secondary school: a qualitative inquiry

BACKGROUND: Children from refugee backgrounds are less likely to access appropriate health and social care than non-refugee children. Our aim was to identify refugee children’s health/wellbeing strengths and needs, and the barriers and enablers to accessing services while preparing for primary and s...

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Autores principales: Baker, Jess R., Raman, Shanti, Kohlhoff, Jane, George, Ajesh, Kaplun, Catherine, Dadich, Ann, Best, Catherine T., Arora, Amit, Zwi, Karen, Schmied, Virginia, Eapen, Valsamma
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6595577/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31242897
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7183-5
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author Baker, Jess R.
Raman, Shanti
Kohlhoff, Jane
George, Ajesh
Kaplun, Catherine
Dadich, Ann
Best, Catherine T.
Arora, Amit
Zwi, Karen
Schmied, Virginia
Eapen, Valsamma
author_facet Baker, Jess R.
Raman, Shanti
Kohlhoff, Jane
George, Ajesh
Kaplun, Catherine
Dadich, Ann
Best, Catherine T.
Arora, Amit
Zwi, Karen
Schmied, Virginia
Eapen, Valsamma
author_sort Baker, Jess R.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Children from refugee backgrounds are less likely to access appropriate health and social care than non-refugee children. Our aim was to identify refugee children’s health/wellbeing strengths and needs, and the barriers and enablers to accessing services while preparing for primary and secondary school, in a low socio-economic multicultural community in Australia. METHOD: Ten focus groups were facilitated with Arabic-speaking refugee parents of children aged 2–5 years (n = 11) or in first year secondary school (n = 22); refugee adolescents starting high school (n = 16); and key service providers to refugee families (n = 27). Vignettes about a healthy child and a child with difficulties guided the discussions. Data was thematically analysed and feedback sought from the community via the World Café method. RESULTS: Personal resilience and strong family systems were identified as strengths. Mental health was identified as a complex primary need; and whilst refugees were aware of available services, there were issues in knowing how to access them. Opportunities for play/socialisation were recognised as unmet adolescent needs. Adults spoke of a need to support integration of “old” and “new” cultural values. Parents identified community as facilitating health knowledge transfer for new arrivals; whilst stakeholders saw this as a barrier when systems change. Most parents had not heard of early childhood services, and reported difficulty accessing child healthcare. Preschooler parents identified the family “GP” as the main source of health support; whilst parents of adolescents valued their child’s school. Health communication in written (not spoken) English was a significant roadblock. Differences in refugee family and service provider perceptions were also evident. CONCLUSIONS: Refugee families face challenges to accessing services, but also have strengths that enable them to optimise their children’s wellbeing. Culturally-tailored models of care embedded within GP services and school systems may assist improved healthcare for refugee families. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-7183-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-65955772019-08-07 Optimising refugee children’s health/wellbeing in preparation for primary and secondary school: a qualitative inquiry Baker, Jess R. Raman, Shanti Kohlhoff, Jane George, Ajesh Kaplun, Catherine Dadich, Ann Best, Catherine T. Arora, Amit Zwi, Karen Schmied, Virginia Eapen, Valsamma BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: Children from refugee backgrounds are less likely to access appropriate health and social care than non-refugee children. Our aim was to identify refugee children’s health/wellbeing strengths and needs, and the barriers and enablers to accessing services while preparing for primary and secondary school, in a low socio-economic multicultural community in Australia. METHOD: Ten focus groups were facilitated with Arabic-speaking refugee parents of children aged 2–5 years (n = 11) or in first year secondary school (n = 22); refugee adolescents starting high school (n = 16); and key service providers to refugee families (n = 27). Vignettes about a healthy child and a child with difficulties guided the discussions. Data was thematically analysed and feedback sought from the community via the World Café method. RESULTS: Personal resilience and strong family systems were identified as strengths. Mental health was identified as a complex primary need; and whilst refugees were aware of available services, there were issues in knowing how to access them. Opportunities for play/socialisation were recognised as unmet adolescent needs. Adults spoke of a need to support integration of “old” and “new” cultural values. Parents identified community as facilitating health knowledge transfer for new arrivals; whilst stakeholders saw this as a barrier when systems change. Most parents had not heard of early childhood services, and reported difficulty accessing child healthcare. Preschooler parents identified the family “GP” as the main source of health support; whilst parents of adolescents valued their child’s school. Health communication in written (not spoken) English was a significant roadblock. Differences in refugee family and service provider perceptions were also evident. CONCLUSIONS: Refugee families face challenges to accessing services, but also have strengths that enable them to optimise their children’s wellbeing. Culturally-tailored models of care embedded within GP services and school systems may assist improved healthcare for refugee families. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12889-019-7183-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2019-06-27 /pmc/articles/PMC6595577/ /pubmed/31242897 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7183-5 Text en © The Author(s). 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Baker, Jess R.
Raman, Shanti
Kohlhoff, Jane
George, Ajesh
Kaplun, Catherine
Dadich, Ann
Best, Catherine T.
Arora, Amit
Zwi, Karen
Schmied, Virginia
Eapen, Valsamma
Optimising refugee children’s health/wellbeing in preparation for primary and secondary school: a qualitative inquiry
title Optimising refugee children’s health/wellbeing in preparation for primary and secondary school: a qualitative inquiry
title_full Optimising refugee children’s health/wellbeing in preparation for primary and secondary school: a qualitative inquiry
title_fullStr Optimising refugee children’s health/wellbeing in preparation for primary and secondary school: a qualitative inquiry
title_full_unstemmed Optimising refugee children’s health/wellbeing in preparation for primary and secondary school: a qualitative inquiry
title_short Optimising refugee children’s health/wellbeing in preparation for primary and secondary school: a qualitative inquiry
title_sort optimising refugee children’s health/wellbeing in preparation for primary and secondary school: a qualitative inquiry
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6595577/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31242897
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-019-7183-5
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