TPC Journal V7, Issue 4 - FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 4 363 mental health needs of Guatemalan refugees living in Mexico (Sabin, Lopes Cardozo, Nackerud, Kaiser, & Varese, 2003). The researchers surveyed 170 participants, and all reported at least one traumatic event, with a total of 1,230 reported traumatic events (e.g., being close to death, friend or family member massacred, witnessing the disappearance of others; Sabin et al., 2003). From these participants, 11.8% met symptom criteria for PTSD, 54.4% had anxiety symptoms, and 38.8% revealed depression symptoms (Sabin et al., 2003). Further research is needed on the mental health needs of unaccompanied minors from the Northern Triangle of Central America. The purpose of this study was to gain awareness of the journey experienced by unaccompanied minors from their countries of origin to the United States and to provide implications for counselors. Therefore, the following research question guided the study: What are the experiences of unaccompanied refugee minors from the Northern Triangle of Central America? Method Thematic analysis, a qualitative methodological approach, was utilized because the researchers were analyzing written narratives. Thematic analysis, unlike content analysis, provides a rich and detailed description of the data (Vaismoradi, Turunen, & Bondas, 2013). This research study was approved by the researchers’ institutional review board. Participants The researchers analyzed the narratives of 16 participants. All the participants entered the United States as unaccompanied minors from the Northern Triangle of Central America (i.e., El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala) and were receiving assistance through a shelter in the Southern region of the United States. Part of the assistance included counseling services offered by a counseling graduate program affiliated with the researchers. After gaining signed consent forms, the participants and their appointed legal guardians received individual counseling sessions in Spanish with bilingual counselors- in-training (CITs). Three of the participants were female, and 13 were male. Ten of the participants were from Honduras, three were from Guatemala, and three were from El Salvador. Participants’ ages ranged from 10 to 23. Although some of the participants were over 18 years of age at the time of the study, they arrived in the United States as unaccompanied minors. Data Collection The data was collected during the counseling process. The CITs involved had at least one semester of supervised counseling experience. They also had completed all foundational counseling courses in their degree plan, including counseling theories, multicultural counseling, assessment, diagnosis, human growth and development, crisis intervention, counseling skills, and group counseling. At the time of the study, the CITs were enrolled in a bilingual counseling course and received information on the counseling needs of unaccompanied refugee minors. Each CIT was assigned a participant and completed three to 18 hours of individual counseling sessions. The hours varied depending on the participants’ availability. Because the participants were exposed to violence in their countries of origin and the journey to the United States, CITs utilized basic relaxation skills, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), and expressive counseling techniques to help the participants process their experiences. Upon conclusion of the counseling sessions, each participant organized a digital storybook that illustrated and discussed their journey to the United States. The storybooks were created on iPads using Microsoft PowerPoint. The participants received assistance from their CITs on utilizing the iPad and writing the content for each page of their book. The books ranged from five to 26 pages. After eliminating all identifying