Exploring Refugee Newcomer Resilience: Identifying Promotive Factors In Early Resettlement

Background: Two conceptualizations of resilience dominate current refugee resilience literature. The first conceptualization views resilience as a stable trait, the second conceptualizes resilience as the absence of indicators of psychological distress. Both conceptualizations are incongruent with the patterns identified and explored in myriad studies of human development and developmental resilience science (DRS), including 1.) the dynamic and context dependent nature of resilience over time (Masten 2024; 2018; Ungar, 2021), and 2.) the capacity for continued positive development to co-occur with psychological stress, and posttraumatic difficulties (Masten, 2007; 2018; Ungar, 2011).

Additionally, current resilience research with refugee populations often utilizes retrospective data with refugees who have been resettled for many years or does not consider time since resettlement as a variable (Ersahin, 2020; Hajak et al., 2021; Hohne et al., 2020; Stempel et al., 2017). Because modern DRS conceptualizations of resilience emphasize the importance of temporal contextual factors (Ungar, 2013), the information may not be contextually applicable to the social and political realities faced by current refugee newcomers. Additionally, this approach often results in refugees referring to factors that occur over many years, rather than specifically those that began in early resettlement and cascaded to later positive outcomes.

This study examines how U.S. resettlement services create a meaningfully distinct environment in which refugee newcomers must navigate resilience, and which factors act as mobilizers of and barriers to resilience in the early months of resettlement.

Methods: The study includes primary refugees who have received state-sponsored resettlement services within 20 months of participation. Group and individual interviews were conducted with ethnic communities who represent the two largest groups of refugee newcomers in Minnesota during 2025: Afghans (n=23) and Ukrainians (n=6). Participants were be recruited through partner ethnic community-based organizations and invited to attend a focus group with 4-6 ethnically concordant community members. Following the focus group conversation, participants were invited for an individual follow-up interview. Exemplar questions include: 1.) What abilities, expertise, and skills do members of your community use to navigate creating a home in Minnesota? 2.) What are some things you might learn about someone resettling here that would make you more worried for their wellbeing during their adjustment to the US? 3.) If you could give advice to resettlement organizations, what would it be?

Analysis: A multi-coder, iterative thematic analysis process organized data into domains, categories, and themes. Within groups, culturally specific analysis occurred first, followed by a shared factors analysis across all groups.

Results and Implications: Newcomers emphasize the power of early relationships as significantly de/mobilizing, and identified several circumstantial factors related to increased early mobilization. Newcomers highlighted the protective role of contextualizing experiences within their cultural narratives and identified community-level factors that promote and sustain resilience.

Identifying culturally specific and shared promotive factors and tracing common contextually driven changes that occur within the first year of resettlement carries the potential to improve how services are targeted and timed during resettlement.