Because refugee families tend to underutilize mental health services, schools have a key mediation role in helping refugee children adapt to their host country and may become the main access point to prevention and treatment services for mental health problems. Many obstacles hamper the development of school-based prevention programs. Despite these difficulties, a review of existing school-based prevention programs points to a number of promising initiatives that are described in this article. More interdisciplinary work is needed to develop and evaluate rigorously joint school-based education and mental health initiatives that can respond to the diverse needs of refugee children. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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refugee mental health service Preventive Health Services human Health Behavior Refugees priority journal religion Mental Disorders psychological well being health program School Health Services Humans preventive health service Review Child Welfare cultural factor school Spirituality child psychiatry social adaptation migration posttraumatic stress disorder child health care preventive medicine psychotrauma Child