Reception of refugees in schools | Children to appease

It is not yet known how many Ukrainians will find refuge in Quebec, but the province says it is ready to welcome them. Several Quebec schools have a long experience with children who have lived in war zones. Above all, they must help them find calm.

Marie-Eve Morasse
The Press

It is said of them that they are children who have “gone the road”. At the Pointe-de-l’Île school service center (CSSPI), in the east of Montreal, we have seen many young people arrive from Angola or Congo in recent years. After traveling for months “the main road through Brazil or Chile” with their family, they settled in Quebec.

“We have whole classes of children who have done the road,” says Maria-Cristina Gonzalez, psychologist at the CSSPI.

A specialist in immigrant and refugee children and professor of social and cultural psychiatry at McGill University, the D^D Cécile Rousseau explains that the distress presented by young people who come from countries at war depends on several factors. This will also be the case for children who have left Ukraine and who could arrive in Quebec schools.

How much exposure to war did they experience? Did they leave at the start of the conflict or were they at the heart of the bombardments, saw the horrors? Did the whole family leave together? Are there any of their loved ones in mortal danger? Did they run out of food?

From the outset, the role of the Quebec school is to “reassure, welcome, calm” the children, she explains, adding that the family and social environment has an undeniable protective effect for these young people.

Grammar and math will have to wait a few weeks.

The essential routine

For children who have lived in unstable environments for months, arriving at school and “always saying hello in French, seeing the same person every day, having a snack at 9:30 am” becomes essential, confirms Maria-Cristina Gonzalez , psychologist at the CSSPI.

The service center documents the migratory journey of its new students to better understand them, to prevent children who have experienced traumatic situations from being “parachuted” into schools.

Some students have been assaulted, gone to jail with their parents, been separated from their families or have been ill during their migration journey.

We accompany these children, but we nevertheless try to “protect” the teachers by not detailing everything that their students have experienced.

“Sometimes children will immediately confide in the teacher, but we have to make sure that the teacher plays his role well, with a healthy distance,” explains Anne-Marie Boudreault-Bouchard, also a psychologist. at the CSSPI.

She cites the example of a teacher who was so touched by the situation of a child that she feared that imposing rules would disturb him, while the search for stability is omnipresent in these young people.

But, she adds, teachers should also be made aware that sometimes the alarm of an evacuation drill, a loud noise or the simple bell that announces the end of classes can be enough for a pupil to remind him a traumatic situation he experienced.

With decades of experience working with these children, Dr.^D Rousseau says that “very often, with time and a supportive and warm environment, things get better”.

Several years ago, especially during the wave of Syrian refugees, the D^D Cécile Rousseau has set up creative expression activities for refugee children and teenagers. “The little ones arrive, they need to play, to draw, to allow them to control stress,” she explains.

Once they feel good, start sleeping again, they become ready to learn. Like the other students.