Dr Mina Fazel: Preventation of Mental Health Problems in Refugee Children
On Tuesday 12th November, we were enlightened by the insights of Mina Fazel into the prevention of mental health problems in refugees. Dr Mina Fazal is an associate professor in the department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, who is also a consultant at Oxford University Hospital’s NHS Foundation Trust.
Dr Fazel has spent the last two decades working to improve the mental health interventions of the refugee population focusing on providing the best school-based mental health service and improving access to evidence-based trauma therapies. Statistics show that 1 in 6 children are brought up in environments of conflict and refugees are 19% more likely to develop anxiety, and 14% more likely to develop depression, along with 33% more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). All these statistics show the greater need for easy access to interventions for refugees. It is due to all these statistics that it becomes more important for prevention of poor mental health of refugee children. Dr Fazel has further emphasised the importance of other strategies of prevention to improve mental health such as treatment for PTSD, cognitive creative arts interventions, parenting skills and manage aggressive behaviours.
Dr Fazel’s talk considered an understanding of the mental state of refugee children and how this is further impacted by further negative events, regarding different aspects of their lives, referencing case studies of refugee children who have already been through a lot of trauma and still are exposed to adversities such as bullying in schools. Dr Fazel has thus developed mental health interventions to improve the mental health of those extraordinary children that took place with refugee children weekly, along with discussing concerns with teachers advising them on how refugee children will feel more normal. According to Dr Fazel, the intervention was most effective in the school environment because it is naturalistic in which Dr Fazel and her colleagues can make accurate observations about the refugee’s mental health. The first meeting involves meeting with the child and a teacher they are comfortable with in order to easily talk about their traumatic pasts. This intervention helps those children overcome adversities in their education such as language barriers in order to live a better life and feel more at home.
Dr Fazel documented a case study of Hasni, an eight-year-old boy that her organisation worked with, as a case study. Hasni sought refuge in the UK from the middle east, due to the turbulent atmosphere that was around him in the area he lived in that led to his father’s death. Hasni unfortunately experienced many risk factors in developing the previously stated mental health problems as he was faced with the death of his father, migrating at a young age, the visit of immigration officials and the abuse by his family. Once Hasni reported the abuse to his school’s mental health service, the support received was misinterpreted as a threat to their living security in the UK leading to them leaving. Unfortunately, the protective strategies that could have been applied to Hasni, were not able to be undergone, as he and his family fled due to the family’s worries of deportation.
To conclude, Dr Mina Fazel’s gave us a brilliant seminar into the prevention of mental health problems specifically for refugees to help provide us a meaningful and overall understanding of their situation.
