Early exposure to toxic stress can cause lasting mental health issues. As they become older, children who have experienced trauma, such as family separation, are more likely to experience depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicidality. Detention of immigrants makes these experiences much more enduring. It has been established that family separation brought on by migration, particularly when a mother and child are apart, has detrimental psychological effects on both parties that endure even after they are reunited. Children who prefer to repress their distress after a distressing encounter are particularly vulnerable to untreated trauma. It is critical to provide care for all immigrant families who have suffered trauma, not just the ones who are currently being torn apart at the border. 54 percent of our clients had arrived in our community as unaccompanied children when we last polled them two years ago. This is a trip that is typically wrought with terrible events, such as family separation. The good news is that these traumatic experiences can be healed from by children and families with the availability of appropriate therapy. Thankfully, knowledge of trauma-informed strategies is growing and they actually aid in people’s recovery from these terrible experiences. I recently celebrated this month with a client who has long battled trauma symptoms connected to his experience of migrating. Having finished a CPT course, he feels more optimistic than ever about the future. He can discuss negative events as truly awful things that occurred, but they don’t have to define who he is.
