Annual of social work, Vol. 23 No. 3, 2016.
Review article
https://doi.org/10.3935/ljsr.v23i3.113
THE IMPORTANCE OF COUNSELLING SUPPORT FOR REFUGEE CHILDREN
Alma Pezerović
orcid.org/0000-0001-6363-7189
; Save the children and Center for missing and exploited children, Zagreb, Croatia
Marina Milić Babić
orcid.org/0000-0002-2310-641X
; Department of Social Work Faculty of Law University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Children represent the most vulnerable population affected by war: confronted with the adverse effects of war and refugee experience, they manifest an exceptional need for counselling support. The professionals providing counselling services carefully consider the entire cultural context and pursue an individualised approach in treatment for each child. The personal traits and competences of professionals who work with children bear particular importance in the light of the complexity of the counselling process, as well as the extremity of the refugee experience. The counselling treatment significantly contributes to the future prospects of the child in the face of the challenges of life in exile that limit the opportunities for the children’s future, and equally impair the activities of daily living and healthy development of children in the present. The need for professional service has been continuously increasing in recent years as observed by the leading global stakeholders who now include
a growing number of psychosocial interventions in all of their activities. As a treatment method, the counselling of refugee
children and their families represents the initial step in the process of the overall social integration of children, as well as in
their empowerment for life in a new environment.
Keywords
exile; counselling; refugee child; support
Hrčak ID:
177429
URI
Publication date:
15.3.2017.
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