Referring Unaccompanied Minors to Psychiatric Residential Treatment: When is it Worth the Disruption to Adaptation and Shelter Integration?

ABSTRACT

One of the greatest dilemmas facing clinicians who provide psychological services to recently immigrated, unaccompanied minors is when to refer children out of the immigration shelter-based treatment to which they have begun adjusting and into a new, more structured environment in which they would face yet another transition and period of adjustment. When is it worth the disruption to adaptation and shelter integration? The current paper represents the experience of two clinicians who provide psychological assessment services to recently immigrated, unaccompanied minors from Central America in the United States and examines practical problems and empirical findings related to this decision-making process.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescent
• central American
• unaccompanied minor
• alien child

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carla Muñoz

Carla Muñoz, M.A., Department of Psychology, Sam Houston State University; she began her studies of psychology in Lima, Peru, where she graduated from the Federico Villarreal State University. She completed a master’s degree in forensic psychology from Argosy University in Sarasota, Florida. Currently, she is a clinical psychology doctoral student at SHSU. Her dissertation assessed the extent to which criminal attitudes and acculturation problems moderate the relation between risk for violence and behavioral problems in Latino adolescent immigrants. She will be completing her pre-doctoral internship at Patton State Hospital.

Amanda Venta

Amanda Venta, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Sam Houston State University; she serves as an Assistant Professor at SHSU. She received her B.A. from Rice University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Houston. She completed her pre-doctoral internship through the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, where she remains Adjunct Faculty. Her clinical training focused on children, adolescents, and families. Her primary research interests are the development of psychopathology in youth and the protective effect of attachment security, with a focus on the psychological functioning of recently immigrated adolescents from Central America. She has received research funding from the National Institutes of Mental Health and the American Psychological Foundation.