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Research Projects Archive

Emergency Immigrant Education Program - Mental Health Intervention Project
Bradley Stein

Between 20-50% of children in the United States have been directly victimized by violence within their families, at school, and in their communities, and many more have witnessed violence. For many immigrant children, violence exposure in this country is frequently preceded by exposure to traumatic events prior to their immigration, the consequences of which can be exacerbated by the stress that often accompanies immigration. Children with exposure to violence are more likely than those without this exposure to suffer from a wide range of social and emotional problems. Without detection and treatment, these problems can significantly impact a child's school performance. These problems are quite relevant to the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), which educates large numbers of new immigrant children, many of whom live in the most impoverished areas of Los Angeles where violence is endemic.

The proposed mental health intervention project will be part of the Los Angeles Unified School District's Emergency Immigrant Education Program (EIEP), a comprehensive school-based program designed to support newly immigrant children and their families by optimizing their success in school. This study represents collaboration between the Los Angeles Unified School District, RAND, UCLA, and USC. The project goals include the following:

1. To determine if case management in conjunction with a school based psychological intervention is more acceptable to new immigrant families and children than case management in conjunction with referral to traditional mental health service providers.
2. To determine if new immigrant children and their parents have greater participation in a psychological intervention when it is provided at the school site versus at a traditional mental health settings.
3. To determine if mental health outcomes differ between new immigrant children with trauma related distress symptoms who receive a cognitive behavioral intervention at school plus case management vs. those who just receive case management and referral to community services.
4. To determine if school outcomes and social functioning differ between new immigrant children with trauma related distress symptoms who receive a cognitive behavioral intervention plus case management vs. those who just receive case management and community referral.

(Completed September 2003)