Coping with life in a new country – affect regulation based on unaccompanied refugee minors’ needs

ABSTRACT

Many unaccompanied refugee minors have experienced adversity, stress and/or trauma. This article discusses how to create a supportive environment for unaccompanied minors with refugee status in residential care and what challenges are present. How do these young people describe their strategies to cope with life? Self-regulation for these young people refers to the ability to regulate emotions to influence their behaviour based on emotional and social demands in a particular situation. Through co-regulation they learn to self-regulate emotions with available, trustworthy and empathetic caregivers in an interactive process. Awareness of the adult’s own feelings is important. In co-regulation, the adults combine soothing language with a willingness to ignore provocative behaviour with young people who are emotionally upset. Data were collected through interviews with 10 unaccompanied refugee minors with experience of residential care. The aim was to examine what challenges these young people experience in creating a supportive environment, and how do they describe their strategies for coping with challenges. Data were analysed using qualitative content analysis. This article formulates issues of possible ways of supporting unaccompanied refugee minors in the process of life in a new country.

ABSTRAKT

Många ensamkommande flyktingungdomar har upplevt motgångar, stress och/eller trauma. I denna artikel diskuteras hur man skapar en stödjande miljö i ett Hem för Vård och Boende för ensamkommande ungdomar med flyktingstatus och vilka utmaningar som finns. Hur beskriver dessa ungdomar sina strategier att hantera sitt liv? Självreglering refererar till förmågan att reglera känslor för att påverka sitt beteende baserat på känslomässiga och sociala krav i en viss situation. Genom samreglering lär ungdomarna självreglera känslor med tillgängliga, pålitliga och empatiska vårdgivare i en interaktiv process där medvetenhet om den vuxnes egna känslor är viktigt. Vid samreglering kombinerar de vuxna lugnande språk med villighet att ignorera provocerande beteende hos ungdomar som är känslomässigt upprörda. Data samlades in genom intervjuer med tio ensamkommande flyktingungdomar som har erfarenhet av ett grupphem. Syftet var att undersöka vilka utmaningar dessa ungdomar upplever för att hantera sin situation på gruppboende och hur de beskriver sina strategier för att klara utmaningarna. Data analyserades med hjälp av kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Denna artikel formulerar frågor om möjliga sätt att i ett grupphem stödja ensamkommande flyktingungdomar i deras livsprocess i ett nytt land.

KEYWORDS:

• Unaccompanied refugee minors’ needs
• trauma-informed care
• affect regulation

NYCKELORD:

• ensamkommande flyktingungdomars behov
• traumamedveten omsorg
• affektreglering

Notes on contributors

Riitta Eriksson has experience in the following areas: migration, practical research on unaccompanied minors and bicultural education. As a researcher at Research and Development North East, Stockholm since 2003, her main interest has been to study the life situation of unaccompanied minors. As a person with experience of living in a country with a different linguistic/cultural background than her own, she has been interested in these issues. Her PhD in International Education, Stockholm University, involved bicultural education. Her current agenda focuses on studying the challenges the staff experience to enhance the well-being of unaccompanied refugee minors in residential care.

Åsa Hedberg Rundgren earned her PhD at Karolinska Institutet in 2006. Dr Hedberg Rundgren is presently head of FoU Nordost (Research and Development North East, Stockholm, Sweden) where she also conducts research within the field of social work. Dr Hedberg Rundgren has a practice background in working with children with disability, and her research has previously mainly focused on disability and developmental neuroscience.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Aleris utvecklings- och forskningsfond.