Abstract: "Somos Como El Rio": Stories of Survival and Love from Mothers Who Were Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (Society for Social Work and Research 30th Annual Conference Anniversary)

Schedule:

Sunday, January 18, 2026

Congress, ML 4 (Marriott Marquis Washington DC)

* noted as presenting author

Morgan Pardue-Kim, PhD Candidate, University of Maryland at Baltimore, MD

Celene Viveros Garces, Research Team Member, University of Maryland at Baltimore, MD

Kerri Evans, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD

Melissa Smith, PhD, Associate Professor, University of Maryland at Baltimore, Baltimore, MD

Background and Purpose: A surge of people leaving Central America for the United States (US) began in 2011. Among them were unaccompanied minors, defined as individuals under the age of 18 who arrived in the US without a caregiver or parent. Eligible unaccompanied children entered the Unaccompanied Refugee Minor (URM) program, which is a federal child welfare system that provides long-term services to URM. Studies have investigated outcomes for URM once they have left the program, yet still missing is an understanding of how URM are doing as parents. This study aimed to explore the parenting experiences of URM from Central America.

Methods: Informed by constructivist grounded theory, we employed a collaborative methodology at each stage of the research process. The team consulted with community stakeholders during the idea generation of the study, formed a community advisory board (CAB) that provided study consultation, and created a community-based research team consisting of individuals with similar lived experiences as the mothers in the study. Six Central American mothers who received services from the URM program participated in three in-depth interviews over an extended time period. Six URM program employees were additionally interviewed to triangulate the mothers’ data. Throughout the iterative data collection and analysis process, we conducted multiple member-checking and peer-debriefing sessions. Data were analyzed collaboratively using the Sort and Sift, Think and Sift © method.

Results: Several themes emerged, including sobrevivencia y amor [survival and love]. Subthemes for the mothers included surviving danger (e.g., childhood maltreatment, domestic violence), receiving opportunities (e.g., services, legal immigration status), learning (e.g., education, how to be a parent), protecting their children (e.g., from potential danger and hardship), and creating a better life for their children (e.g., being a better parent than they experienced, having more opportunities than they had). Mothers who described more positive parenting experiences versus more negative ones reported spending a greater amount of time in the URM program and/or receiving higher-quality services.

Conclusion and Implications: The experience of being a URM mother is about surviving and loving in the context of culture, place, and policy. These results suggest that the URM program was beneficial and supports the need for continued high-quality services. This research extends the literature on the benefits of the URM program for those it serves. Since January 2025, major policy shifts have impacted the URM program, and therefore the services and supports that URM mothers receive. The future of the URM program is uncertain, and up-to-date policy will be discussed.