Immigrant students in New Jersey need more support in schools to address their unique mental health needs, a new report from immigrant youth advocates states. A child’s experience migrating to a new country can be traumatic, isolating, and distressing — on top of that, the pandemic has caused significant loss and grief for immigrant and refugee communities.
The New Jersey Consortium for Immigrant Children, a coalition of legal advocates for immigrant youth, released a report last week detailing these and other findings, and focused on highlighting children’s personal experiences during the pandemic that affected their mental health.
Many schools don’t have enough bilingual mental health staff to work with English learners and their families, counselors tend to lack an understanding of an immigrant student’s experiences, and there aren’t enough programs to help immigrant students who recently arrived adjust to their new life, the report outlines.
“The unique and complex experiences of immigrant youth, as well as their limited access to mental health care, mean schools must offer culturally mindful mental health services that are more accessible to students than outside resources,” the report states.
Among the recommendations the report makes are to hire bilingual mental health professionals; create student-led, teacher-facilitated community groups to help new immigrant students adjust; and require training for all staff to learn how to be sensitive to the needs of immigrant students.
Read more at Newark.Chalkbeat.org.
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