Multisystemic resilience of Ukrainian youth following forced migration: Navigating space, place, and people

This research identifies the promotive and protective factors at different systemic levels that facilitate psychological and social well-being when young people are living as migrants with an indeterminant status.

Informed by a social-ecological understanding of multisystemic resilience, 50 Ukrainian migrants to Canada aged 12-19 were interviewed twice over a 12-month period to investigate their experience of resettlement under a temporary visa program. All participants were forced migrants, residing in Canada for up to 3 years in two regions of the country (Nova Scotia and Alberta) with different size diaspora. Interview questions focused on a range of psychological, social, institutional, and environmental contextual factors associated with well-being. For the analysis, constructivist grounded theory was used to identify factors that could explain young people's developmental outcomes in a specific context of temporariness.

Results show that forcibly displaced immigrant youth navigate the spaces, places, and their relationships with people to support positive developmental trajectories after exposure to potentially traumatizing events. Young people discussed multiple systems that became crucial during their transition to life in Canada, among them communication with peers, family, dependency on the diaspora, mentorship, and the quality of housing.

Findings help to broaden theories related to forced migration, specifically theories that emphasize the cocreation of meaning attached to person-in-environment interactions and the resulting potential for positive development even under conditions of temporariness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).