Supporting Development and Adjustment of Recently Arrived Youth : PIA Youth Program

• Immigrant and refugee adolescents who migrate to a new country face acculturative-challenges in addition to their already ongoing developmental-challenges. Nevertheless, most preventive interventions for recently arrived youth focus on a small segment of this population who may potentially be at risk for mental health issues related to psychological distress and past trauma. The PIA Youth Program was developed as a cognitive dissonance-based universal intervention to support newly arrived youth in accomplishing their acculturative and developmental tasks to promote their development and social integration to the host society. The program content was informed by newly arrived youth’s own description of needs and the research on the risk and protective factors in relation to migration and resettlement processes. A single-group pre-and post-test pilot study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness and the feasibility of the program. The pilot study aimed to determine whether the program could help the youth overcome their challenges such as learning a new language, handling academic tasks, seeking help from others, developing a career path, and feeling a sense of belonging in the host society. In addition, feasibility and process of the implementation were assessed using measures from intervention leaders and program participants. The results suggested that the youth who participated in the program improved relative to their baseline level in several outcomes. Specifically, their internal motivation to learn Swedish (d = .47), confidence in achieving academic goals (d = .28), and persistence in dealing with school difficulties (d =.22) showed a trend of increase. On the other hand, the youth who participated in the program sessions in their home language showed a decrease in societal belonging whereas the youth who participated in the mixed Swedish speaking groups showed a slight increase. In addition, reports from the intervention leaders and program participants suggested very high satisfaction with the program, high relevance of the content and high level of active engagement in discussions. Overall, the pilot evaluation suggests the feasibility and potentially positive outcomes of the PIA Youth Program. The results were used for mapping the challenges and refining and improving the program. The research team is currently running a randomized controlled trial to test the program outcome under different conditions.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Refugees

Immigrants and Newley arrived

Youth and adolescents

Wellbeing and adjustment

Prevention research

Lessons learnt for prevention

Policy making and human behaviour

Psychology

Psykologi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

pop (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)