Sammendrag
Commissioned by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) and the Norwegian Directorate of Health, this study focuses on the realization of the right to rehabilitation and social reintegration assistance to asylum- seeking children who have been victims of, participated in or witnessed acts of war. The report describes good practices on psychosocial support from Denmark, Sweden and Luxembourg and presents lessons learned from rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for war-affected children by international organizations. In addition, the Norwegian context is also taken into account through examples of psychosocial support on different levels in the Norwegian society. The project is based on a desk study and qualitative interviews. The empirical data material consists of 16 interviews with practitioners, four with national experts in the case countries and one expert interview in Norway. Interviews were also conducted with five war-affected youth, five parents of war-affected asylum-seeking children and three foster parents for unaccompanied minors.
The report argues that rehabilitation interventions and social re/integration measures need to take into account both protective factors and risk factors. Examples of protective factors are structured activities within arenas such as school and kindergarten, a well-established and stable accommodation, participation in regular recreational activities, supportive and emotionally available parents, supportive adults outside the family and peer relationships, not least through establishing new social networks with native peers. Appropriate cross- culturally sensitive therapeutic care need to be provided to those children, or those parents, who are traumatized or suffer from other types of mental problems related to war experiences.
The report presents recommendations to Norwegian authorities on how to improve identification, rehabilitation and social re/integration of war-affected asylum-seeking children.
Vis fullstendig beskrivelse
