BACKGROUND: Children who are exposed to war are at great risk of suffering mental health and developmental problems. The care children receive from parents during and after conflict is highly important, acting as a significant protective factor. The stress and difficulties of war and displacement, often leaves parents unable to give children the care they need. By supporting families through the use of parent interventions, it may be possible to weaken the link between war and displacement, and psychological difficulties in children. AIMS: The present project had two main aims. Firstly, to examine the parenting needs and challenges of refugee families living in preresettlement contexts. Secondly, to test the feasibility of disseminating parenting information to families living in conflict zones. The project took place in Syria and Turkey with families that had experienced the conflict in Syria. METHOD: First, a systematic review was carried out to explore previous evaluations of parenting programmes in preresettlement contexts. Then, a qualitative study was carried out exploring the parenting challenges and needs of refugee families, and the coping strategies parents utilised in caring for their children in preresettlement contexts. Thematic analysis was carried out to identify key issues from the data, and parental experiences. The final study tested the feasibility of large-scale distribution of parenting information leaflets and feedback questionnaires in a conflict zone in Syria. Descriptive statistics were used to explore the sample characteristics of the respondents and t-tests were utilised to examine the usefulness of the parenting leaflet. In addition, a content analysis methodology was used to code respondent comments that had been written on feedback questionnaires. CONCLUSION: The current available evidence base on parenting interventions in preresettlement contexts is poor. However, very soon after the immediate extreme stress of displacement, parents are very keen to access information on how best to parent their children. It may be possible to design and deliver interventions for parents in this context based on theoretical parenting principles and identified needs, to inform holistic interventions and culturally appropriate policy responses. The successful delivery of parenting information to families in a conflict zone demonstrates the scope for using existing humanitarian supply routes, both to distribute information and to receive feedback directly from recipients, even in high risk settings. Further research is required to investigate the efficacy and effectiveness of such an intervention in practice.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:677780 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | El-Khani, Aala |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/exploring-the-parenting-challenges-and-meeting-the-needs-of-families-in-preresettlement-contexts(e41c969b-d56a-4414-bdea-dd1936431913).html |
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