Unaccompanied minors are children and adolescents who have left their countries and find themselves in a foreign country without a reference adult. They present high rates of psychiatric symptoms with complex psycho-traumatic, transcultural, family, educational, and judicial entanglements. The NatMIE clinical program was created in 2015 in Cochin Hospital in Paris to meet the specific needs of unaccompanied minors. It is a joint psychiatrist-psychologist consultation that also involves the professional who accompanies the young person on a daily basis, facilitating institutional work. The transcultural approach proves to be essential, alongside the systematic contribution of a cultural mediator. The narrative approach provides continuity and coherence to a fragmented life history, in particular through objects of mediation. It is a setup that calls on several approaches: psychiatric and psychological, transcultural, narrative, and institutional.
- minor
- foreigner
- culture
- unaccompanied minor
- psychic trauma
- adolescent
- narrativity
- migrant
- child welfare
- transcultural