Psychological condition and support refugees teenagers

Abstract

We supposed that implementation of new integration program should help improvement of integration and psycho- social condition of IDP teenagers. In accordance with UNHCR, there are more than 15 000 refuge in Shida Kartli after 2008 August war. Most of forces relocated youth faced warfare; some of them were the victim of violence. Most of the young people not employed and they don’t know what they may expect from future. They don’t know how to deal with mental health problems, suicide statistics are extremely alarming. We would report the last case, when young man, who was 20 year old, uploaded war photos to social web page and then carried out a suicide. It seems difficult to integrate with the local youth. This is the typical situation of young people in the IDP settlements. We provided investigation, which took place before implementation of integration program, there was appeared depress, high rates of anxiety, low ability of stress reduction, integration with the residents was evaluated with low rates by the IDP teenagers. Estonian colleagues shared experience in modern integration program under the project- “older brother, older sister”, which one we have introduced further IDP youth. Please see enclosed the data before integration program implementation and post: Research and Analysis of IDP’s (teenagers) Psychological Conditions and quality of integration • The Research involved 250 IDP teenagers from 5 settlements of Gori Rayon - Karaleti, Berbuki, Khurvaleti, Shavshvebi and Verkhvebi • The Research involved equally 50 teenagers Internality Displaced Persons per settlement Assessment Scales: • Anxiety, depression and stress assessment scales have been used in the research • Spilberger’s anxiety scale - allows to identify anxiety and makes a definition whether the stress is caused by personal characteristics or a situation • Depression scale - identifies depression and determines its severity (heavy, medium, light) • Stress Reduction skills scale - helps to ascertain how people cope with stress; • Scale scores, which evaluated the integration of young IDP. Results – Anxiety: • High levels of the anxiety was detected in 92% of respondents • 90% of detected anxiety comes from current being of the persons, 10% is due to their personal characteristics. Such results are directly related to resent psychological trauma of the respondents, and are closely connected to their current life • The ongoing problems of IDP and their unclear future – “Fear of the Future” is also a big source of the anxiety. After: Anxiety had been 37%, from this figure 11% of personal anxiety, situational - 26% Results - Depression: 13% has not detected depression; 51% light depression (50-59 points) ; 32% medium Depression (60-69 points) ; 4% heavy depression (70 points or higher) After: 63% has not detected depression; 20% light depression (50-59 points); 16% medium Depression (60-69 points); 1% heavy depression (70 points or higher) Results – Stress: 78% of the respondents showed very law ability to overcome stress . After: Only 12% of the respondents showed very law ability to overcome stress. Results- Evaluation of integration quality: 72% of youth noted that it is difficult to integrate with the local youth. After: Just 17% of youth noted that it is difficult to integrate with the local youth. The results clearly showed the correctness of our opinion, that: use of integration program improves psychological condition and quality of integration.