Help seeking in school by Israeli Arab minority adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems: results from the Galilee Study

"God Did Not Create Us This Way": An Investigation into the Experiences of School Counselors Working with Arab-Muslim LGBTQ Youth

Schools play a key role in supporting, protecting, and advocating for LGBTQ students. However, educational programs worldwide tend to exclude and marginalize LGBTQ issues, especially when it comes to ethnic and racial minorities. In the current study, we examined Arab school counselors' experiences of working with Arab-Muslim LGBTQ youth. After 100 counselors declined to participate, the study included semi-structured interviews with 60 female counselors in Arab-Muslim schools in Israel. Data were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis. Four main themes emerged: religious considerations, causal explanations of LGBTQ orientation, working practices, and supportive resources. Our findings point to the unique challenges facing Arab school counselors who are torn between their professional values and traditional norms. Among the strategies counselors used for managing this tension were separating LGBTQ orientation from LGBTQ adolescents, passive listening while avoiding proactive inquiry, and referring to LBGTQ orientation as a transient phase. Our findings emphasize the need to develop culturally relevant programs that address LGBTQ orientation for students, teachers, and families.

Barriers to help-seeking in Israeli Arab minority adolescents with mental health problems: results from the Galilee study

BACKGROUND

The Galilee Study assessed mental health service needs among Israeli Muslim and Druze adolescents and their mothers. Studies show that mothers of adolescents belonging to the Arab minority have much lower help-seeking rates than Jewish mothers. This paper examines mothers' structural and cultural barriers to help-seeking.

METHODS

All 9th grade students living in 5 towns representative of Muslim and Druze localities in northern Israel, were eligible for the study and 1639 (69.3%) obtained parental agreement and participated. Emotional or behavioral problem were assessed in the classroom using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. A total of 704 adolescent-mother dyads participated in the follow-up, and were interviewed at home, using the Development and Well Being Assessment inventory, the Composite Barriers to Help-Seeking Questionnaire, the General Health Questionnaire - 12, the Subjective Feelings of Discrimination Index and socio-demographic questions. Pearson χ2 test and multivariate binary logistic regressions were performed to analyze mothers' consultation rates by risk factors. Exploratory factor analysis was performed to identify underlying factors and assess construct validity of the Composite Barriers to Help-Seeking Questionnaire, and also mean scores and standard deviations for the distinct scales were calculated.

RESULTS

More mothers of adolescents with a mental disorder than those without a mental disorder consulted a professional or school source (39.7% vs. 20.5%; χ2 = 45.636; p = < 0.001). The most important barriers to help-seeking were those related to "Accessibility", followed by barriers related to the belief that "Treatment is detrimental" and to the possibility of "Reprisal by authorities". Barriers related to "Stigma" and "Distrust of professionals" had the lowest means scores. Differences by ethnicity/religion were found.

CONCLUSIONS

Structural barriers related to lack of access, were considered the main obstacle to help-seeking in this Israeli Arab minority population. Cultural barriers such as stigma were considered of secondary importance. Structural barriers could be reduced by increasing the number of accessible public mental health clinics in the minority localities, a responsibility of the Ministry of Health and the HMOs. Information campaigns and psychoeducation for parents would help reduce other barriers to mental health treatment.