Who is who

 News and Announcements

 Current Issue

 Journal Archive

 Sample Articles

 For Authors

 For Reviewers

 For Advertisers

 Subscribing to Thinking Classroom or Peremena

Make a comment

Integrating Refugee Children

Anna Vershok

A bit of history

After military actions began in the Chechen Republic in 1995, a stream of refugees - both Chechens and Russians displaced by the conflict - poured into the rest of Russia. Initially many of them managed to settle down quite successfully. They received compensation for their lost homes, found work, and sent their children to school. But as the number of refugees grew, municipal governments in Moscow and some other regions of Russia began to try to protect themselves - they passed legislation limiting the rights of the newcomers.

In the fall of 1996, the telephone in the offices of "Civil Assistance," a non profit organization providing assistance to refugees and forced migrants, began ringing off the hook. Refugee parents were calling from morning till night, complaining that their children were not being accepted into Moscow schools. Previously a representative of "Civil Assistance" or the State Duma could just call the principal and request that the child be accepted. But starting in 1996 such calls were no longer effective. School principals explained that they were under orders not to accept any children whose parents were not registered as legal permanent residents in Moscow. They could not disobey, as the authorities checked up on them every week.

"Civil Assistance" filed suit against the Moscow government on behalf of the children. And won... four years later. But in 1996 this outcome could not be foreseen. So "Civil Assistance" suggested that we - university students - could teach the refugee children.

So it was that the Moscow Center for the Integration and Education of Refugee Children ("The Center") opened in March 1996. We had neither classrooms nor a clear idea of how to begin. Besides, none of us had ever taught anyone before, nor had we dealt with refugees. However, being university students, we were familiar with the teaching/learning process, and many of us planned to work with children in the future. So in short, we decided to take a chance.

Being young and optimistic, we were absolutely sure that we would be able to provide real schooling for these children But as the program developed and matured, so did we, and after suffering many academic failures, we came to understand that in fact we were not capable of coping with such a huge task. But we did manage to "launch" lots of children into normal Moscow schools. At some point we realized that our main task was to prepare the children for regular school, and to help them adapt to both their new school and their new home, Moscow.

What we do now

Finding themselves in school, refugee children get their full share of its negative aspects. The reason is twofold: (1) They are behind academically (both because most Moscow schools have very high standards, and because these children have missed from six months to three years of study) and (2) they suffer from the widespread negative attitude toward "non-Muscovites." The children have to face this negative attitude not only from classmates but even from some teachers. Fortunately, most such teachers revise their prejudices when the newcomers demonstrate a good knowledge of their subjects.

Initially, approximately 10 children attended our Center daily; now [in 2002] there are usually 20-35. Almost all of them formerly lived in the Chechen Republic and left their homes because of the military conflict. Each child has his or her own story, providing for very different prospects for integration into the new environment, both psychological and academic.

The teachers at the Center are university students, and for many teenaged refugees they also play the role of big brothers and sisters. All instruction is individual, which helps to establish close emotional contact between teacher and pupil, and if the pair is well matched the teacher can become a trusted friend to the child and be his/her mentor and guide in the new culture. Though typically teenagers from the Caucasus look more mature than their peers from Central Russia, and claim to be independent, they are in fact in great need of nurturing attention from adults.

However, we cannot replace their parents. We have found that an important indicator of a child's chance for successful adaptation is the family situation, and most important, the physical presence of parents. Some children at the Center, such as Milana and Kazbek, have all their close relatives with them in Moscow. Other families have been split by the war, as is the case with Akhmed and Tamila.

Akhmed and Tamila lived in Moscow with their mother and older sister. The mother and sister frequently traveled back to Chechnya to visit the rest of the family, so the children were often left in Moscow all alone. They felt very homesick. Sometimes they did not even have money for food, and we had to contribute money so that they would not starve. Given that they had been accustomed to a psychologically stable, safe family, and now the adults kept simply forgetting about them for weeks at a time, leaving them anxious and lonely, these children were clearly under severe stress, and we could hardly expect them to integrate into their environment or focus on their studies.

When the parents are present, even if they are not the most sensitive, the children have a better chance - at least they do not feel forsaken.

The family of Milana and Kazbek left the Chechen Republic before the beginning of military actions, in 1994. The parents, who were sure that everything would soon be settled and they would be able to return home, did not send their children to school but taught them at home. Time went by, and Milana and Kazbek began to feel uncomfortable: they had few friends and not much to do. Eventually, their despotic father consented to let them go to school, but by then they had fallen behind academically and they were ashamed to be sitting in class with much younger students. However, staying at home, surrounded by incessant family quarrels, was equally impossible. Besides, their younger brother, who had started first grade in Moscow, was a good student who didn't give their parents any trouble. Milana and Kazbek realized that they were now second-rate not only on the street, but also in the family. The parents wanted to find some place for them to study, so in 1998 Kazbek, 15, and Milana, 16, first appeared at the Center

We usually set academic goals in cooperation with parents and children, especially in the case of teenagers. In this particular case the goal we decided on was enrollment in, and successful completion of, "externat," a special school with an accelerated curriculum that would allow Kazbek and Milana to cover a year's courses in six months. For families, the psychological issues typically remain behind the scenes, unless parents or children approach us with a special request. The primary goal of the Center in relation to psychological support is practically always the same: to create an open and friendly atmosphere, which will foster a child's rehabilitation and self-expression.

Now Milana and Kazbek are studying at a university. Their father came to appreciate their efforts (and ours) and to understand that the children should get a proper education. They still turn to us for psychological support and even for academic help.

Certainly, the forecast is much more optimistic when the family considers the child's interests to be of primary importance.

Amirkhan, a boy who came from an aul (a mountain village), from a very simple family, resumed school in Moscow after losing a year of study. He quickly caught up with his classmates, however, and was soon asking his literature teacher with a mischievous smile, "Have you read this book? What about that one? You must have read the abridged version, but I read the entire text." He displayed an irrepressible passion for reading, and for studying in general. His family, who by now could have returned home, have postponed their departure for his sake: The parents want Amirkhan to finish school and go to university in Moscow - then they will leave with a quiet heart.

What we have to deal with

We should always keep in mind that the war in Chechnya is, in fact, still going on, and the Chechens perceive it as an ethnic conflict. To them, we are "the Russians," which means the enemy. The paradox of this war lies in the fact that Chechens are at times compelled to ask for and accept help from the "enemy." Understanding that it may be easier at first for children to accept support from members of their own ethnic group, we encourage them to get together with other students of the Center. Actually we consider such networking and communication to be an important component of the rehabilitation process. Here in Moscow the Chechens are dispersed throughout the city, and the Center provides them a place to meet and discuss their problems, to provide support for one another. Unfortunately however, this support is not always expressed in socially acceptable and civilized forms: Another psychological and pedagogical challenge we face almost daily is the need to suppress ethnic confrontation, and to counter the intolerance that spills over from the adults into the life of the children.

One fine day, all of our boys were set to "pay a visit" to the school where one of them - 13-year-old Akhmed - studied, to "beat up the Russians" who had offended him. The staff learned about the plan by accident, during a group therapy session. Little by little we found out that the original conflict was not ethnic in nature - it was one of those petty quarrels that arise many times a day in any group of children. The real trouble is that quarrels between refugees and members of the local population immediately take on an ethnic coloring, and the adults who happen to be around sometimes add fuel to the fire. Fortunately, in this case we managed to convince the children that conflicts could also be resolved by dialogue. And our deputy principal set a good example by going with them to Akhmed's school and taking part in "peace negotiations" with the children.

How do we help them?

What is psychological adaptation, and who experiences it?

A person needs to adapt when he finds himself in a situation of disadaptation, that is, at odds either with the entire world around him or with some components of it. According to Leo S. Vygotsky, disadaptation is an important normal stage in any change in "the situation of social development": the stage that provides an opportunity to update norms, rules, and values (Vygotsky, 1984, p. 432). It becomes dangerous, however, when this stage drags on, interfering with normal development. Thus, psychological difficulties experienced by refugee children in adapting to their new environment are only natural. The task is to help them through their disadaptation with the least possible damage to their personalities, and direct them toward socially acceptable future development. The majority of our children have not experienced physical violence, but they have suffered the harmful effects of living in a combat zone: some had to take refuge in cellars during bombardments, some had their homes invaded by bandits, some fled their native towns under continuous shelling, some were assaulted by children of other nationalities on their way home from school. These and similar facts of the children's biographies give us a special perspective on their development. While working with refugee children we try in each case to identify which aspects of the social environment have changed abruptly, thus making them critical to the child's development. Competent, focused intervention can help the child overcome these difficulties, particularly if he gets supportive care.

Zulya, an 8-year-old girl, was brought to us by her mother in 1999. The family had fled the bombing in Grozny via the so-called "green corridor," which was opened especially for refugees. When they left, there were three children in the family, but by the end of their trip there were only two - Zulya's older sister was killed during one of the air attacks. The mother was suffering from severe depression. The father was trying to make ends meet by scraping together whatever work he could find. Zulya looked like a small, frightened animal. No one would even think of sending her to a normal school, as she appeared to be totally incapable of studying. She literally could not remember anything - even if we saw a glimmer of comprehension in class we could be sure that the next day she would come back as "tabula rasa." At the Center, Zulya tried to study as best she could, but in the beginning the result was practically zero. In addition to psychological work with both mother and daughter, we decided to provide this girl with as many lessons as possible, both the required courses (mathematics, Russian) and supplemental courses (drawing, reading). Our sessions with her were based mostly on games involving motor activity, the way we would play with a small child. We tried to remove Zulya from her oppressive home situation for as many hours as possible, to fill her days with positive activities, to help her set her own educational goals. Zulya started the next academic year in a normal school, in third grade. We were very worried that she would not be able to function academically, but to our surprise she blossomed, and was only slightly below the average level of her class. Zulya continued to come to us for one more year for additional academic support, but as the months passed by she showed up less and less frequently.

Understanding refugee children

We should never forget that a refugee is, first of all, a person who has fled from the familiar, albeit dangerous, to the new and unknown. When children who have not completely acquired their first culture are immersed in another, they experience a kind of personality split, which results in problems with their self-concept and search for identity, and their ability to distinguish between right and wrong. Kim Nguet Bah Tien, a child psychiatrist working with refugees in Paris, writes, "For a child-refugee who is faced with two cultures, two languages, and in particular for a teenager who has already reached the state of ambivalence due to his physiological and psychological development - being halfway from childhood to adulthood - the only example to follow when choosing his role in life are his parents, also refugees, who have lost their social, professional and private individuality. This fact will inevitably affect his individuality too" (Cherkasskaya, 1992, p. 155)

According to Ahern, experiences that subject a child to a certain risk include "trauma," "loss," and "severe deprivation" (Ahern, 1993, p. 285). When a child has seen another person injured, or has seen a body torn apart, or has himself been in mortal danger, he has experienced traumatic stress. Such situations may affect the mental health of adults, often causing lasting negative consequences, and children are even more vulnerable. Frequently children are traumatized if they witness violence against their parents.

One of our students, a nine-year-old Russian boy, kept crying out in his sleep after his mother was nearly shot in his presence. The son and his mother had lived in Grozny during the war. While they were walking down the street to get a bucket of water, federal soldiers mistook them for Chechens (the mother was wearing a scarf, and her skin was darkened from sunburn and dirt) and without ceremony flung the mother "up against the wall." To prove that she was actually Russian she had to show her white breast.

A child may "either witness other people's sufferings, or be the direct victim of violence" (Cherepanova, 1996, p. 78). In either case, he feels terror, horror, and helplessness. Some time after such stressors are ended, most children return to equilibrium. However, some may experience posttraumatic stress, which complicates their readjustment to normal life and leads to various "disadaptive forms of behavior" (same).

Many children who have experienced a psychological shock suffer from its consequences for a long time. As we already mentioned, family support plays a key role in their recovery. Under extreme conditions, parents appear to act as a buffer, softening the effect of mental stress on children. Therefore, children who find themselves in a stressful situation with their parents are able to bear those hardships much more easily than those who are removed from their parents to be taken away to a safe place.

Certainly, the causes of disadaptation are complex but, in our opinion, the primary cause should be sought in the family situation and in the family relationships. In particular, practically all refugee families suffer from a sharp loss of income and reduction of their social status. Frequently the parents cannot find jobs, some turn to alcohol under the pressure of circumstances, some are on the edge (or over the edge) of a nervous breakdown, so the children cannot get the parental support they so desperately need. Our experience shows that the most psychologically stable children are those from psychologically stable families.

Working with parents

As I have mentioned, we work almost exclusively with children who are in the care of family members, and therefore it is very important for us to know the family situation. In each case the family's effect on the child is different, but no child is unaffected. Family influences the development of the children, the forms of disadaptation they exhibit, and the effectiveness of various possible interventions. So whenever possible we try to involve parents in our work. First of all, we draw their attention to the fact that life is hard not only for them, but also for their children. Sometimes parents are genuinely surprised to realize this, because depression manifests itself differently in children and adults. A child may be hyperactive, and may seem importunate, capricious, and demanding, behaviors that do not in fact correspond to his true feelings of fear, melancholy, and depression.

Then we explain to the parents that nobody can help their child as much as they can. How? First of all, by overcoming - at least to some extent - their own stress, pain, and grief. The parents' mood has a powerful influence on the child, and can slow down the process of adjustment. "Even the slightest stressful condition in parents is harmful for children as it provokes unhealthy symptoms," writes Ahern (1993, p. 285). Understanding the psychological condition of the parents, we try to encourage them to try something that seems feasible to them. For example, they can talk with children about the things they have experienced (and this is helpful, not harmful, for children), they can talk about the missing members of the family, they can explain their present situation. In addition, they can share their hopes and plans for the future, and consider concrete strategies. If the parents are capable of doing this, life becomes easier not only for the children, but also for the adults themselves.

When we first met, Zulya's mother complained that she could not even talk to her children - she was irritable, lost her temper with them at the slightest pretext, even beat them - and then felt guilty. The feeling of guilt toward their children is very familiar to most refugee parents: they have been unable to protect their children, and thus they have failed in their parental duty. To assuage their guilt, parents tend to place responsibility for everything that has happened - and everything that is happening - on circumstances. This in many ways jeopardizes any attempt at adaptation. The most difficult parents to work with are those who are absolutely indifferent to their children. They do not care in the least about their child's feelings, wishes, or fears. For them, a child is merely a means to achieve their own goals.

Ibraghim's mother appeared to be very affectionate, and her son seemed very attached to her. The thing that surprised us was that the mother would not let the boy leave her side, although he was by no means a baby (he was eight years old). She did not even want to hear about sending him to school. After he had studied for a year at the Center, we insisted that he be enrolled in school. Three difficult months went by, and eventually the boy got completely settled, his initial conflicts with his classmates and teacher forgotten. But in the summer his mother suddenly sent him back to the Chechen Republic to live with a distant relative, so that he would not be in the way during her court proceedings she was suing her former husband for possession of their apartment. The seemingly well-adjusted Ibraghim would do nothing to further her case - she needed an unhappy child, suffering from the actions of his monstrous father, and she wanted to appear to be a caring mother doing everything possible for the well-being of her son. A year and a half later she came back to us, requesting that we take the child back. The boy had grown and matured physically, but academically he lagged hopelessly behind. We accepted him but could do nothing to help him.

Fortunately, some children have parents of a very different kind.

During our first year, 6-year-old Ilya's parents brought him to the Center asking us to prepare him for school. During his first sessions, the boy would sit clinging to the edges of his chair and pressing his lips together tightly. However he proved to be very talented and was quick to grasp everything we taught him. Still he had difficulty communicating, both with children and with adults. So at the end of the winter his teacher was moved to tears one day when she saw our Ilya go up to a strange boy on a sledding hill and suggest that they ride down together on his sled.

The credit for this success belonged not only to us. In fact, Ilya's mother was primarily responsible. She played with her son and discussed a whole range of topics with him, she would bring us his drawings and ask us to interpret them, she tried to make use of our advice and of the psychological help provided by other experts, she maintained very friendly relationships with everyone who wanted to help her son, and she elicited warm feelings in all who dealt with her. All this helped Ilya overcome his difficulties, which resulted partly from his refugee status but also from the idiosyncrasies of his character.

What we should remember

The other two risk factors mentioned by Ahern, "loss" and "deprivation," are an integral part of the life of any refugee. Children lose their homes, the things they are familiar with, their friends, and sometimes even their parents and close relatives. How they react to loss depends on the stage of their development and their potential ability to recover, but primarily on their age. Ahern provides data showing that preschool children who are especially attached to their parents display an even more passionate attachment in traumatic situations.

A mother approached us for help when her four-year-old son began to behave like an 18-month-old. The boy would cling to his mother, demand that she carry him everywhere, and would cry when she left. This behavior depressed his mother profoundly, as she could clearly remember when her son had been a precocious child: he could count to 20, could read, and was quite sociable and independent. She simply did not know what to do. She spoke sternly to him, scolded him, and was immediately ashamed of having done so. And saddest of all, she was at her wits' end, exhausted with the effort of coping with him. She was afraid that her son would never become his former self again. The situation became much easier for her when she learned that regression is a frequent reaction to stress, especially with such young children, and she could feel comfortable allowing the child the extra closeness he required.

Young schoolchildren also may change abruptly due to stressful situations. They become irritable, rude, out of sorts, and their academic progress slows. Parents, as a rule, complain that "it is impossible to deal with them," that they are "out of control." Mothers frequently blame such behavior on the absence or inattention of the children's father. They believe that these children need to be treated more strictly, when actually they need more support and care.

Teenagers' reactions to stressful situations are similar to those of adults. They lose control, and do not realize what they are doing. They are obsessed with a fear of becoming social outcasts. Their behavior may be quite erratic. Do you remember Akhmed and Tamila?

The people who work at "Civil Assistance" always knew immediately when Akhmed had arrived: either he started a fight, or his girlfriend ended up in tears, or if the girlfriend was away Akhmed started "bullying" younger children. He was seen and heard everywhere. He was impulsive and seemed not to think before - or after - he acted. It would be easy to conclude that he didn't give a damn about anything, that he couldn't care less about adults. However we realized the depth of his caring when on one occasion his mother failed to return from Chechnya on time. No one even knew whether she was alive. Akhmed was beside himself with worry, kept running back and forth in the classroom, and the only thing he could talk about was his plans for meeting the next train from Chechnya. His sister Tamila, on the other hand, acted very differently. She withdrew into herself, seemed apathetic and lethargic.

Conclusion

Posttraumatic stress influences the whole personality. The victim feels that the world no longer provides support for human life in general. "Our notion of existence collapses" (Greening, 1994, p. 93). Therefore assistance to sufferers of posttraumatic stress cannot be limited to overcoming symptoms of disadaptation, but should aspire to restore the child's favorable disposition toward people and toward the world in general, to restore his ability to live in the world and actively engage with it.

We are aware of this reality: Refugee children do not always have access to experts; they can rarely rely on getting qualified help. But we hope that the experience described above may help teachers and administrators who are integrating refugees into their classes and schools. Unfortunately, such schools are no longer rare, because the Chechen Republic is not the only "hot" spot in Russia, and Russia is not the only country where compelled migration of ethnic populations is taking place. Try to understand these children, and offer them your support.

References

Ahern, F. (1991). Sotsial'naya rabota s det'mi bezhentsev [Social work with refugee children]. In Teoriya ipraktika sotsial'noi raboti: otechestvennyi i zarubezhnyi opyt [Theory and practice of social work: National and international experience], (vol. 1, pp. 281-287). Moscow: Tula.

Cherepanova, E.M. (1996). Psikhologicheskii stress [Psychological stress]. Moscow: Akademia.

Cherkasskaya, L. (Ed.). (1992). Rabota s bezhentsami i peremeshchennymi litsami [Work with refugees and displaced people]. Moscow: Institut problem gumanisma i miloserdiya.

Greening, G. (1994). Posttravmaticheskii stress s pozitsii ekzistentsial'no-gumanisticheskoi psikhologii [Post traumatic stress from the perspective of existential-humanist psychology]. Voprosy psikhologii [Questions of psychology], 1994, 92-96.

Vygotsky, L.S. (1984). The crisis of the seven-year-old. Sobranie sochinenii v 6-i t., t. 6 [Collected works in 6 vols., vol. 6]. Moscow: Pedagogika.

Psychologist Anna Vershok works at the Moscow Center for the Integration and Education of Refugee Children in Moscow, Russia. She served as principal of this school from 1996 to 2000.

Make a comment