Psychosocial support for adolescent refugees and migrants in schools.

An Verelst

An Verelst is a postdoc fellow and works as a day-to-day project coordinator of the Horizon2020 project RefgueesWellSchool at Ghent University. She is a clinical psychologist and for her PhD in Education Sciences she studied the Psychological and Social impact of sexual violence in adolescent victims in war-affected Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. She has combined field work and practice-oriented research on issues such as sexual violence, refugees and migrants, trauma, armed conflict, terrorism.     

Anna Sarkadi

Anna Sarkadi is a specialist and professor in social medicine at Child Health and Parenting (Chap) research group at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences at Uppsala University. Anna Sarkadi leads the research group Chap. The research group CHAP is an interdisciplinary research environment focusing on societal interventions to promote the mental health of children and parents.

Anne Sofie Borsch

Anne Sofie Børsch is a PhD student at the Danish Research Centre for Migration, Ethnicity and Health, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen. She has also a Master in Science in Sociology, with a specialization in migration studies and qualitative research methods.

She has a special interest in the role of educational institutions regarding the wellbeing and social inclusion of migrant youth.

Within the RefugeesWellSchool, Anne Sofie deals with qualitative research and analysis. 

Antónia Tökés

Arnfinn Jomar Andersen

Arnfinn J. Andersenhas a doctoral degree in sociology, for his thesis on “How Men Create Space for Family and Parenthood. Fatherhood and its conditions in a heteronormative culture”, at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He is currently researching on refugee migration to Norway, where he chairs three projects. One of them encompasses the Norwegian leadership of the RefugeesWellSchool, through preventive school-based interventions to promote the mental well-being of refugee and migrant adolescents.

Caroline Spaas

Caroline Spaas is a PhD student at the University of Leuven, Belgium (KU Leuven), department for Education, Culture and Society (Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences).

Caroline will oversee the realization of the RefugeesWellSchool study in Belgium, implementing and evaluating preventive psychosocial intervention programs in ten schools throughout Flanders. She has a special interest in the impact of migration on child development and family relations, as well as in partnerships between schools, families and communities.

Charles Watters

Professor Charles Watters is Director of the Centre for Innovation and Research in Wellbeing at the University of Sussex where he leads research programs and teaching in the field of Migration, Refugees and Wellbeing. He has acted as international advisor to a range of NGOs and research groups and as Scientific Advisor to the EU in the area of migration and health. Professor Watters publications include the 2008 book `Refugee Children: Towards the Next Horizon (Routledge) and the 2020 book Mental Health and Wellbeing: Intercultural Perspectives (Macmillan). He is founding editor of the International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care.

Emma Soye

Fatumo Osman

Fatumo Osman is a researcher at Child Health and Parenting research group at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences at Uppsala University. Fatumo obtained her PhD in Medical Science at Karolinska Institutet 2017 with a dissertation of evaluating culturally tailored parenting support programme for Somali-born parents living in Sweden. Current research projects involve long-term follow-up of a parenting support programme on Somali-born parents and their children’s mental health, and to explore refugee parents' perceptions of their children’s needs in terms of mental health.

Ilse Derluyn

Inna Feldman

Inna Feldman is a health economist, senior researcher and associate professor at Child Health and Parenting research group at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences at Uppsala University. Her area of research encompasses theoretical and empirical health-economics evaluations, with a particular focus on the economic evaluation of interventions targeting mental health problems in children and adolescents

Kirsi Peltonen

Kirsi Peltonen is a senior researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Psychology, Tampere University, Finland. Her research has focused on mental health of violence exposed children and adolescents as well as on interventions targeted to them. Especially, she has studied interventions among refugee children. In the RefugeesWellSchool study, Kirsi wants to use her skills and knowledge about efficacy and effectiveness research and training of professionals.

Lucia de Haene

Lutine Pastoor

Lutine de Wal Pastoor has a PhD in Educational Anthropology and is a Senior Researcher in the Department of Forced Migration and Refugee Health at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS). Her research interests include the education of students from refugee backgrounds, within a sociocultural perspective. Lutine has been participating in the RefugeesWellSchool project since January 2018 and she is now responsible for the development of the In-Service Teacher Training (INSETT).

Marianne Opaas

Marianne Opaas is part of the Norwegian RWS-team, and has been a researcher at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies since 2005. She has her doctoral degree from the Psychology department at University of Oslo. Her thesis from 2016, "Trauma, personality function, and posttraumatic reactions: A retrospective and prospective study of traumatized refugee patients", is part of a longitudinal follow-up study that she chairs. Marianne is a clinical psychologist, with varied clinical positions over 20 years, previous to her current position. She currently has a part-time evening psychology practice in addition to her work as a researcher, mainly treating traumatized individuals with a refugee or migration background.

Mervi Vänskä

Mervi Vänskä is a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Psychology, Tampere University, Finland.  She holds a PhD in the field of Developmental psychopathology and Family psychology. Her research contributions are in the areas of: 1) mental health and wellbeing in the transition to parenthood among families with psychological, medical or toxic traumas; 2) early bio-psycho-social risk factors of child development; 3) self-regulation and psychophysiological stress regulation as underlying mechanisms of child development; and 4) intervention research that aims at enhancing the wellbeing of children and families with traumatic histories. In the RefugeesWellSchool study, Mervi is engaged in supervising teachers in completing the INSETT and PIER interventions in Finnish schools. She will also contribute to research concerning impacts of these interventions on adolescent and teacher well-being.

Natalie Durbeej

Natalie Durbeej is a behavioural scientist and a researcher at Child Health and Parenting research group at the Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences at Uppsala University. She has interests in mental health problems among children and youth as well as interventions to reduce mental health problems in these populations. Current research projects aim to evaluate interventions to reduce mental health problems among newly arrived children and to explore determinants of equality in health among preschoolers.

Nikolett Szelei

Nina Primdahl

Nina Primdahl is responsible for coordinating the implementation of RWS interventions and data collection in the Danish setting. She has a master’s degree in public health from University of Copenhagen and Universidade Nova in Lisbon, specializing in minority health issues and qualitative analysis.

Per Kristian Hilden

Per Kristian Hilden is a medical anthropologist and senior researcher at the Norwegian Center for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies. His past research includes themes in migration and minority health, medical pluralism, medicalisation and preventive medicine, substance use, irregular migration, human trafficking and global health. Current projects focus on post-migratory health, broadly defined, and processes of resettlement and excile involving adult and adolescent refugees in Norway.

Raija-Leena Punamäki

Raija-Leena Punamäki, PhD, is a psychologist and professor at Tampere University, Finland. She received her PhD from the University of Helsinki. Her research was focused on child development, mental health, and family dynamics in conditions of military conflict, psychosocial interventions for war-affected children as well as rehabilitation of survivors of torture/human right. Her current research includes analyses to the maternal exposure to weapon-related heavy metals and infants’ emotional and sensorimotor development.

Reeta Kankaanpää

Reeta Kankaanpää is a doctoral researcher at the University of Tampere, Finland. She specializes in measurement validity and reliability of the questionnaires. Reeta wrote her Master's thesis on testing the validity of multidimensional well-being indices, and is now interested in the measures in RefugeesWellSchool questionnaires. Previously she worked in a study testing the effectiveness of quasi-experimental complex interventions promoting integration of adult refugees.

Riina Lepistö

Riina Lepistö, PsM, is a psychologist and project researcher at the Tampere University, Finland. Previously she has worked in Adolescent Psychiatry and as a School Psychologist. In RefugeesWellSchool she is especially working with implementing and coordinating PIER-intervention and TRT-intervention in Finnish schools.

Sanni Aalto

Sanni Aalto is a doctoral researcher at the University of Tampere, Finland. She has 5 years of experience in child psychiatry. Sanni wrote her Master’s thesis on the psychosocial adaptation of first and second generation immigrant adolescents in Finland and is now eager to continue research further within this field. In RefugeesWellSchool Sanni is especially interested in the effectiveness of the school interventions in increasing young migrants’ well-being and adaptation.

Signe Smith Jervelund

Signe Smith Jervelund (PhD, MSc) is Associate Professor at Section for Health Services Research, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen. Signe Smith Jervelund’s main scientific interest lies within the field of health services research with a particular focus on access to, use and effects of healthcare services by different population groups, and how to reduce social and ethnic inequality in health. Applied research, user engagement, comparative perspectives, and innovation in teaching and dissemination of research results are important elements in her work. In the RefugeeWellSchool project, Signe Smith Jervelund is particularly involved in the design, planning and evaluation of the interventions “Drama Therapy” and “Welcome to School”.

Sofie de Smet

Sofie de Smet is a PhD researcher in Psychology and Theatre Studies affiliated to research group S:PAM (Studies in Performing Arts and Media, Ghent University, Belgium) and the Parenting and Special Education Research Unit (KU Leuven, Belgium). She holds a degree in Psychology (KU Leuven & Free University of Berlin) and a degree in Performance Studies (Ghent University). In her interdisciplinary research, she explores the role of trauma narration in refugees’ coping with experiences of collective violence and forced displacement in theatre interventions, including an analysis of the dynamics of participation in applied theatre practices and collaborative research practices with refugees in Western countries of resettlement. Besides her academic work, Sofie is engaged in transcultural posttrauma care to refugees and asylum-seekers in the Clinical Centre PraxisP (KU Leuven) and is currently in her final year of the Postgraduate Training in Family Therapy Studies at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven).