After publishing a post about supporting young people from Afghanistan in 2021, we have since received requests for a similar post to help support young people from Sudan given what has been happening in recent weeks.
Although not an exhaustive list, we hope that this guide will provide some useful resources and websites to help you in supporting young people who may be feeling anxious, worried and upset about what is going on in Sudan at the moment.
The Red Cross and Sudanese Red Crescent may be able to help people currently in Sudan, although please be aware that the situation on the ground remains difficult and can change quickly. If you have a young person worried about family members in Sudan and would like to find out about what support there is in the country, this may be a good place to start.
According to their webpage people in Sudan can get in touch via the following:
The British Red Cross also run a free national support helpline for people in crisis if young people want to speak to someone – full details of the support line can be found here with information provided in Arabic here
Getting up to speed on what has happened in Sudan means that young people wont have to give you the back story. The BBC has provided a useful guide that may help you to develop your knowledge in this area.
The BBC World Service have also launched an emergency radio service, broadcast twice daily, providing updates and counteracting misinformation. Information on this service can be found here
Social media has many advantages but can also cause additional emotional distress in times of war and conflict. We know that young people are anxious about families and it is natural to want to stay up to date with what is happening however we would recommend that if you/carer/support worker can spend time with your young person, gently explaining that doom scrolling, looking for news updates constantly isn’t going to change the situation or help them in the long run, but there are things they can do to manage this.
If you are working with someone from Sudan who is in the appeals process of their asylum claim, or has become appeals rights exhausted, get them legal advice as soon as possible.
After Russia invaded Ukraine, we saw a surge in activity to support and raise awareness for people fleeing . One of the things we observed at ISWS, was how the separated migrant young people in our care struggled with this, questioning why there was an outpour of support for Ukraine but not for Sudan/Afghanistan/Eritrea etc etc. If the school/college did something special to raise funds/awareness for Ukraine, enquire as to whether they feel it would be useful to do something similar for Sudan? We know that keeping busy and feeling useful is one of the best ways to promote resilience in young people’s emotional wellbeing, so asking them if they’d like to do something to help (raise funds for a charity working in Sudan for example) may help young people through this process.
When all else fails and there is no reassurance or intervention left to give, the best we can do as practitioners is listen and be present. It’s ok if you don’t have all the answers, you’re not expected to. Sitting with young people, validating or helping them to name their feelings can be all we can do sometimes and that is ok.
As in our previous post, if you cannot be present consistently (hello massive caseloads and pending deadlines) work with support staff/carers and devise a way to make them consistently present. Take an active approach to this, create a plan, signpost staff who are not yet aware of what’s going on, check in on them regularly and make sure that young person has a safe, nominated person to be around when needed. Don’t wait for young people to come forward for this, it’s important that adults make the first move here.
As practitioners we know that trauma manifests itself in different ways and this is going to impact on the way that our young people interact with services and professionals. It might be that we need to cut them slack if they are acting out, we might need to check in again when they say “I’m fine”.
Caveat: Staff at ISWS Ltd are not trained mental health experts and the links within this post are designed to signpost practitioners to resources that may be useful in practice, these are not intended to replace mental health interventions. It goes without saying that if you are concerned about any young person in your care, you must seek guidance from a GP or via mental health services.
