News
Documentary Screening, Terror and Hope: The Science of Resilience
The documentary Terror and Hope: The Science of Resilience, made by award-winning filmmaker Ron Bourke, showcases the study conducted by the research team leading this Program at Yale University, in collaboration with humanitarian actors from Mercy Corps, and local academics in Jordan. It won the best Documentary award at the 2020 SCI-ON Film Festival; the Best Short Documentary at the 2020 RAW SCIENCE Film Festival; and the Best Short Documentary at the 2020 AFMX Festival. It was also Finalist at the USA Film Festival, the AFIN INTERNATIONAL Film Festival, and the Rome PRISMA Fold Festival. Other 2020 screenings will include the Canberra Mental Health Film Festival and the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA). Read more here. |
New tool measures resilience in adolescent Syrian refugees
Researchers from Yale University, together with partners at universities in Canada, Jordan, and the United Kingdom, have developed a brief and reliable survey tool to measure resilience in children and adolescents who have been displaced by the brutal conflict in Syria. Over 5 million people have been forced to flee the six-year-old conflict in Syria, and over 650,000 Syrians are now rebuilding their lives in neighboring Jordan. Read more about the new tool … |
A Teen Refugee’s Brain May Be Disrupted More By Poverty Than Past Trauma
Alexandra Chen was a trauma specialist working in Lebanon and Jordan when she noticed that a specific group of kids were struggling in schools. Chen kept getting referrals for refugee students who had fled the war in Syria. They were having trouble focusing and finishing schoolwork. Some had even dropped out of school. She wondered to what extent the different stressors they faced — exposure to violence in Syria, lack of resources or concerns for the future — affected how they navigate their daily lives. Specifically, she wondered, which had a bigger impact: past trauma or the poverty they now lived in? Read more here. |
In war zones and refugee camps, reseachers are putting resilience interventions to the test
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Study examines effects of genes and resilience on Syrian refugee youth
A new study demonstrates the influence of genetic factors and resilience — the resources and capacities for overcoming adversity — on changes in levels of psychosocial stress and mental health for Syrian refugee youth who experienced war and forced displacement. “Individual children vary in how quickly they recover from highly stressful and traumatic experiences, and the extent to which they respond to brief humanitarian programs intended to alleviate profound stress in war-affected populations. This may be because individuals are differentially sensitive and responsive to their environments,” said Catherine Panter-Brick, professor of anthropology at Yale and the study’s principal investigator. “We tested whether the interplay between genetic and psychosocial factors matters for stress and mental health recovery.” Read more here. |
A high-profile coverage of our resilience research was published in Science Magazine, 28 Feb 2018 