Risk Communication in Trauma Handling

Unaccompanied minor refugees are one of the most vulnerable sets of population that are in the risk of sinking in trauma and lifelong negative consequences that come along with trauma as these minors flees to another country all by themselves, without any parents or guardians who could be their support system. In Norway, the state takes the responsibility for their wellbeing and trauma handling since these minors don't come with any parental figures. Since the number of applications from unaccompanied minor refugees seeking for asylum is increasing recently, the subject of trauma handling has become an important concept that needs attention. Therefore, this research aims to study how risk communication among refugees, host community and other involved stakeholders could be used effectively in trauma handling to improve the wellbeing of unaccompanied minor refugees. To study this, ten employees who, work with these unaccompanied minor refugees in a municipality in Norway were interviewed to know the situational and practical challenges they undergo in trauma handling and risk communication related to trauma. Along with this, some of the official guidelines that are followed by these employees has also been studied to check the accuracy. After a very deep study with these two research methods, three important findings were made. One is, to deal with trauma, risk communication should focus on creating a favourable environment, not just educating the refugees on risks. Second is that host communities also go through trauma due to this new situation. This has to be communicated and given attention, and the final one is, trauma handling requires flexible and effective cross communication of risks inside the different fields of employees working towards this goal with different backgrounds.

Keywords: Trauma, Risk communication, Perceptions, Cooperation, Unaccompanied minor Refugees, Host community.