Many migrant children separated from their parents at the U.S. border, some of them very young, have landed in shelters where they often experience stress, neglect, and minimal social and cognitive stimulation.
The latest findings of the long-running Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), involving children in Romanian orphanages, tells a cautionary tale about the psychiatric and social risks of long-term deprivation and separation from parents.
BEIP has shown that children reared in very stark institutional settings, with severe social deprivation and neglect, are at risk for cognitive problems, depression, anxiety, disruptive behavior, and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
But BEIP has also shown that placing children with quality foster families can mitigate some of these effects if it's done early. The study was published this week by JAMA Psychiatry,