Nearly half of refugees world-wide are children under the age of 18, according to the US Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Effects on a refugee child's development and growth vary widely depending upon each child's specific experiences. For some refugee children shielded from the horrors of war, navigating different homes and host cultures may be their greatest stress. For other children, the trauma and violence of war may have affected them directly, resulting in them witnessing or even personally experiencing violence.

Such challenges and disruption can have diverse and profound effects on the developing child. While some youth show remarkable resilience, others develop mental health problems associated with the trauma and stress they have experienced.

A range of mental health and developmental consequences are associated with children refugees, especially those exposed to armed conflict. Those consequences can include elevated symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and behavioral problems. Sometimes these mental disorders manifest themselves in physical symptoms as well.

Experts suggest that use of comprehensive, community-based services that are culturally competent and evidence-based can be successful when applied to work with refugee children. Specifically, school-based programs can provide crucial interventions for refugee children.  Schools can become a welcome change to the disruption that refugee children endured in their countries of origin and during their resettlement journey.

East Bay Agency for Children assists local refugee children and their families in the difficult transition to their new lives by using our cultural competency to connect them to available social services, enroll children in school, and when possible, provide mental health services to address the effects of trauma.

"At a very young age, children learn to rely on adults for their physical safety and protection. But because parents and care givers can't be with their children 24 hours a day, it is important for children to have information about how to recognize those situations which threaten their personal safety. They need to know how to identify those persons who they can go to if they need help and how they should respond to reduce their own victimization.  Teaching children those skills is the foundation of EBAC's Child Assault Prevention program.

"It's also important to convey the message that children are not alone, that there are people who care about their safety and are interested in helping them.

"When children participating in our Child Assault Prevention program do disclose sexual abuse or other forms of child abuse, it is not uncommon for them to tell us that they tried to tell other adults, but they weren't believed or the situation was minimized. Or sometimes they simply didn't know they could tell anyone. CAP strives to empower children to advocate for their own safety and to train adults to really hear a child's concerns.

"It is so rewarding to see children taking what they learn, use it and succeed. Because of our CAP program, we see children believing in themselves and acting on their own behalf."