Reimagining Social and Emotional Supports in Schools for Immigrant Students: A Contextual and Structural Approach.

Immigrant students and families experience disproportionate exposure to trauma, immigration-related stress, structural inequities, and poor access to mental health and social services which can lead to mental health inequities. Immigrant students and their families also have many strengths that can buffer potential negative mental health outcomes. Schools, which address social and emotional development in addition to academic achievement, are critical institutions that can play a unique role in enhancing the strengths and responding to the needs of immigrant students and families. In this review, we adapt the Behavioral Model for Vulnerable Populations to acknowledge the contextual and macro-level factors (e.g., relevant policies, environmental influences, and structural factors) and the predisposing, enabling, and need factors that immigrant students and families experience and impact access to school mental health and social services. We discuss school-based interventions that show efficacy for improving mental health outcomes and focus on addressing acculturative stress among immigrant students. We also discuss models to address social determinants of health need among immigrant students and families within schools, including the community schools model applied to immigrant students and families. We conclude this review by providing recommendations and strategies for pediatricians and schools to transform school-based supports for immigrant students and families and promote equitable outcomes. Our recommendations include incorporating multi-level school supports for addressing mental health, social need, and acculturative stress among immigrant students, along with reinforcing the strengths of immigrant students, and promoting school collaborations with pediatricians, school-based health centers, and trusted community partners.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. Dr. Roya Ijadi-Maghsoodi and Dr. Sheryl Kataoka received funding from the Rare Impact Fund, NIMH 1U01MH131827-01, the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, and are consultants to the Los Angeles Unified School District. They previously received funding from the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine COVID-19 Research Award. Dr. Jocelyn Meza received grant funding from the American Psychological Association and received salary support for this work as a Co-Investigator from the Advanced Laboratories for Accelerating the Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY) Research Center Grant (P50 MH126337-01A1) and the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI; SP-2020C3-21078). Dr. Lilian Bravo was supported by the National Clinician Scholars Program at UCLA. Ms. Kungeun Lee received funding from the Rare Impact Fund, NIMH 1U01MH131827-01, and the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine COVID-19 Research Award. The content and views expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Institutes of Health, or the United States Government. This article was published as part of a supplement sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
(Published by Elsevier Inc.)