Evaluating how best to support refugee and asylum seeking children and young people with their mental health
YoungMinds – Evaluation of the YoungMinds Welcome Programme
Evaluating how the children’s workforce can best support refugee and asylum seeking children and young people with their mental health through trauma-informed practice.
What we did
This programme intended to build capacity within the children’s workforce to use trauma-informed approaches to support refugee and asylum-seeking children and young people suffering from trauma, distress and mental health issues as a result of their personal experiences. The programme delivered the bulk of its activity in three areas: Kent, Croydon, and North East England. The model takes a workforce development approach – focusing on the professionals including foster carers in young people’s lives.
We used the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate training programmes quantitatively complemented by observation of training sessions and interviews with foster carers.
What we learned
We advised YoungMinds to ensure that subsequent programmes so beyond training and ensure that a holistic-organisational capacity building approach is taken to build trauma-informed organisations rather than just individuals ..
We noted that some trusted adults are not always reached by such programmes – for example, sessional staff such as sports coaches and midday assistants. Volunteers such as Independent Visitors may also learn from subsequent prgrammes. We recommended that subsequent models find a way to reach trusted adults who may fall beneath the radar of formal training programmes.
We noted that the programme refreshed existing knowledge of people who already understand the basics of trauma-informed practice. We recommended that YoungMinds identify ways to raise awareness and sell the benefits of trauma-informed approaches to those who otherwise would not be aware, even of the basics.
