“This Is a Story of Resilience!” A Multicontextual View of Protective Factors for Unaccompanied Immigrant Minors

Guided by a social-ecological perspective (Ungar, 2012), this qualitative study explored multicontextual sources of resilience—individual, family, community, and policy—for unaccompanied immigrant minors (UIM) who migrated to the United States from Central America, one of the largest, most complex child migrations worldwide. This work responds to recommendations for multicontextual support and advocacy for UIM and clinical services emphasizing strengths and needs. We conducted semistructured, qualitative interviews (N = 16) with a multidisciplinary group of professionals serving UIM (i.e., immigration attorneys, community leaders, shelter staff, and clinicians). We coded interviews using a qualitative coding scheme and analyzed data using Quirkos. Thematic analysis revealed that resilience factors are multicontextual and interconnected. They include individual factors, such as youth assets and beliefs rooted in culture and faith; family factors, such as social support, reunification, and cultural and family messages of resilience; community factors, such as access to services, support for cultural values, sense of belonging (especially for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, and more youth), allyship and advocacy, and supportive immigration shelter environments; and policy factors, such as humanitarian immigration relief and policy supporting family reunification, access to services, and standards of care for youth in U.S. immigration proceedings. Resilience factors are complex, with potential negative consequences noted. Findings suggest that to understand UIM resilience, we need to understand the contexts that support or undermine it and these contexts’ capacity for resilience. These contexts create “layers of support” that can inform actionable recommendations for strengths-based interventions, community resources, and policy initiatives to support UIM resilience.