Giving Compass' Take:

• Brookings explores the psychological effects that immigrant children separated from their families at the border will have on their longterm development, and addresses the urgent need for intervention.

• While policymakers across the world attempt to find resolutions for refugee crises, the mental trauma aspect is often overlooked. How can nonprofits mobilize to make sure that young migrants get the professional help they need?

• Here's a TED Talk on how to bring mental health support to refugees.

In February, UNICEF reported that there were over 12 million children worldwide living as refugees and asylum seekers, and another 16 million displaced in their own countries due to war and conflict. In the U.S., we have over 2,000 migrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking children at our southern border who were taken from their parents and warehoused alone — though there are plans now to warehouse them on military bases with their parents.

The trauma that many of these parents and children are experiencing on American soil threatens to undermine their future development via the impact of toxic stress. As concerned scientists who study the impact of toxic stress, trauma, and resilience in children and families, we know that the cost to our societies can be enormously high. It is imperative that the global community responds and takes action to help babies and children who are too young to ask for help themselves.

When traumatic experiences are imposed on young children, the impact on their bodies and brains can last a lifetime, even if those children cannot consciously remember the events that terrified them. When children are in stressful environments, they, like adults, become anxious and frightened. Hormones and brain chemicals associated with stress change the brain in ways that affect how the individual functions socially, emotionally, and intellectually. It even affects the way a person’s immune system functions.

Read the full article about the cost of toxic stress on refugee and separated children by Kathy Hirsh-Pasek at Brookings.