After Return

10. Health and wellbeing
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Conclusions
Mental health difficulties and a protracted deterioration in emotional wellbeing are clear and significant
outcomes for former unaccompanied minors returned to Afghanistan. Interruption in access to specialised
care, especially where young people had been receiving counselling or medication for mental health
issues whilst living in the UK, has been recorded as a key challenge, with increased physical symptoms
experienced in the absence of regular and appropriate treatment for mental health conditions. Health
care services, where sought out either for physical illness or mental health difficulties, have ranged in their
effectiveness. Unaffordable costs have often prevented young returnees from accessing or continuing
essential support, or, on other occasions, insufficient resources or expertise have prevented adequate
health care provision.
The barriers to flourishing mental, emotional and physical health are multi-faceted, and often exacerbated
by the particular vulnerabilities of this target group. They have reported a lack of familiarity with the
security and safety context in Afghanistan, and constantly contrasted their experiences in the UK with a
hopelessness about their futures upon return. Loss of support networks (including social workers, key workers,
GPs and counsellors), along with experiences of stigmatisation as a returnee, has contributed to worsening
health and wellbeing outcomes for more than half of the young returnees monitored.
After Return 49