Un nouveau dispositif transculturel adapté à l’accueil en soins des mineurs non accompagnés a été mis en place à la maison des Adolescents de l’hôpital Cochin suite aux résultats d’une recherche action menée pendant quatre ans. Cette recherche visait à améliorer le lien des éducateurs avec ces jeunes, à favoriser l’émergence de leurs compétences transculturelles et permettre malgré la barrière de la langue et des parcours traumatiques, une relation suffisamment bonne et contenante. Centrée sur la relation spécifique entre les mineurs non accompagnés et les professionnels qui les ont en charge, l’étude a utilisé différents outils facilitant la co-construction d’un récit (objets, circle test^{1Outil de recherche consistant à dessiner trois cercles, chacun représentant un temps : passé, présent, avenir.} , médiateurs-interprètes et propositions transculturelles) en présence du professionnel référent du jeune. Le déroulé en trois rencontres a permis de faire émerger (et aider à résoudre) un ensemble de défis complexes auxquels doivent faire face les mineurs non accompagnés. Une des problématiques récurrentes est la sensation d’un avenir suspendu face à un statut qui change à la majorité, engendrant un risque de discontinuité de prises en charge à de multiples niveaux (éducatif, soignant, scolaire, survie matérielle…). Nous proposons de décrire les résultats pour 17 situations de jeunes ayant atteint leur majorité durant le temps de la recherche ainsi que le bricolage créatif qui s’avère nécessaire afin de maintenir une continuité et des soins malgré tout.

In France, unaccompanied immigrant minors are considered to be children unprotected by parents or other legal representatives. Some of them have left their country and their family to study, work and pursue a better life, while others are escaping from war-torn countries. The social workers (and carers) who work with them may cope with a variety of problems. Lack of knowledge about the minor's culture and lack of training about symptoms of trauma may lead to misinterpretation. The teenagers may experience difficulties in trusting any adults, after the loss of their family or other various traumatic events, including being victimized by smugglers. These youngsters confront a multiplicity of difficulties and paradoxes. Since the absence of an adult protection prevails over their “foreignness”, they receive temporary legal protection and social services in France. However, at 18 years old, they can be deported back to the chaotic environment that they fled, often at the risk of their lives. They are also exposed to extremely discordant attitudes among the professionals who deal with them (due to the conflicts between immigration policy and child protection laws). The Pr. Moro team has built multidisciplinary interventions strategies, based on a complementary method resorting to both psychoanalysis and anthropology, in order to respond to the needs observed in recent years, related to different populations. In this article, we focus on the adaptation of the transcultural setting care to the unaccompanied minors. We propose to describe the creation of an original transcultural setting, adapted from the results of an action research and its impact on those teenagers as they age 18.

This study used a qualitative method that mixed narrative and transcultural approaches. We conducted 47 interviews with 17 different young people and their social worker (2 to 3 interviews per dyad one month apart). The process involved three meetings led by two transcultural careers in the presence of the referring social worker and an interpreter-mediator. We relied on three tools to facilitate the narrative process: objects, the circle test, and cultural mediators. The circle test allows the subjects to represent their perceptions of the past, present and future, as well as the potential correlations between them. The teen is asked to bring three objects or thoughts (for example, music, image, souvenir/memory, sentence…). The three objects shall be associated with the adolescents’ past, present, and future and are required to illustrate some aspects of their inner life, chosen randomly by context, mood, and the investment of the social worker. Interviews were processed using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and analyzed in line with a complementary transcultural approach.

Three main themes were identified: reduce the risk of social isolation, psychotraumatism and precariousness, regressive positions and accountability. The effective sub-themes for an action modifying the relationship between the young person and the educator are highlighted: need to get rid of a sense of helplessness; highlight the minor's ability to connect and not being afraid belonging to a group; give meaning to the journey, such as a rite of passage; assume a maternal position for the educator, etc.

This original transcultural setting effectively transmits transcultural skills in three meetings to the professionals accompanying these young people. It is also a relevant framework to re-activate the construction process of identity of these young people, at the delicate period of passage of 18 years. It promotes the emergence of cultural representations and it takes into account pre-migration, migration, and post-migration experiences.