Research We’re Proud to Have Supported: Coping Among Unaccompanied Afghan Refugees in the UK

We are excited to announce new Baobab-supported research just published in Transcultural Psychiatry, and congratulations to lead author Dr. Rebecca Lane for seeing this project through! 

Coping among Afghan Former Unaccompanied Refugee Children in the UK: A Qualitative Study Exploring Barriers and Influences Over Time looks at the key ways young people who have arrived unaccompanied to the UK after multiple traumatic experiences develop coping mechanisms. Based on interviews with young people at our Centre the qualitative analysis shows multiple strategies deployed by young people, with stable social connections and access to holistic long-term therapeutic care essential in allowing resilience to be built over the very long term. 

The research highlights the long-term impact of uncertainty and adversarial asylum processes, the importance of safe, trusted relationships and the role of community, culture, and holistic support in recovery.

Built from a carefully designed interview process and grounded in the lived experiences of young people themselves, this is a key study that will sharpen our understanding of how these highly vulnerable young people, victims of severe human rights abuses as children, manage to find ways to survive, and, over time, thrive when shown the right attention and care. 

It is part of the warm on-going research relationship with the University of East Anglia and the enthusiastic Dr. Kenny Chiu who has been supporting our research work for quite a few years now – an essential research collaboration that allows us all at the Baobab Centre to remain a reflective, scientifically-informed therapeutic community.

Full research paper available here: