Resilience in Child Refugees: An Historical Study

Abstract

Research on unaccompanied refugee and evacuee children who came to Australia in the late 1930s and early ‘40s sheds light on parenting and caregiving practices which may support children in times of unexpected stress and trauma, and which may help protect them against the lifelong disabling effects such experiences can have. This lifespan retrospective study revealed that, while many children experienced short-term psychosomatic responses to the stress and trauma of separation, war, and persecution, there was a vast difference in effects over the longer term. Factors which may have contributed to this disparity are explored in this paper.