New publication by Laura Wood: Impact of punitive immigration policies, parent-child separation and child detention on the mental health and development of children

Impact of punitive immigration policies, parent-child separation and child detention on the mental health and development of children

A timely new paper has been published in the British Medical Journal Paediatrics Open written by Dr Laura C N Wood, a paediatrician at the CFJ researching the health of forced migrant children in care.  Using the recent US government’s ‘zero tolerance’ approach to illegal immigration that included splitting over 2,300 children from their parents at the US-Mexico border as a case example, this review provides a structure to consider the child health risks of such policies including damaged attachment relationships, developmental trauma, toxic stress and wider detrimental impacts on immigrant communities. It concludes with a call for postmigration policies that promote family unification, resilience, recovery and an end to all forms of child immigration detention.

A link to the publication can be found here.