2024 Survey of Adult TCKs
on the Impact of Childhood Global
Mobility on Adult Wellness

We are currently preparing our fourth research report from our 2024 survey! Learn more:

SURVEY
RESPONSES:
1643
Adult TCKs Represented!
92
Passport Countries Represented!

What This Research Explores:

  • How does a globally-mobile childhood impact adulthood wellness?
  • Do TCKs have better adulthood outcomes than monocultural populations, despite experiencing more adversity?
  • Do the supports we suggest and offer (like debriefing) make a measurable difference?
  • Is there a discrepancy between support and associated adulthood wellness based on passport country?   
  • What types of support made the biggest difference for those with the hardest stories?

2024 Survey on the Impact of Childhood Global Mobility on Adult Wellness

Who took the survey

  • 18 years or older
  • Lived outside your passport country OR lived in more than one country before 18yrs
  • Diplomat kids, military kids, corporate kids, UN kids, NGO kids, missionary kids,  worldschoolers, children of international school educators - anyone who lived overseas for any reason!

What does the survey ask about

  • Multiple choice questions
  • Adverse Childhood Experiences
  • Positive Childhood Experiences
  • Family, School, and Community
  • Strengths and Struggles in Adulthood

Safeguarding Measures

  • Independently reviewed by experts
  • Care resources provided
  • Not required to identify yourself
  • Data shared in aggregate only
  • Choose to withdraw your participation at any time
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Objectives
We anticipated that through this survey, the following objectives would be achieved:
  • High ACE scores in globally mobile children can be connected with wellness benchmarks in adulthood, and compared to risk levels in other populations.
  • The frequency with which globally mobile children experience positive family and community factors will be measured, and can be compared to adult wellness benchmarks in other populations.
  • The impact of Positive Childhood Experiences and other resilience factors on globally mobile children will be measured, and can be compared to resilience research in other populations.
  • Better-targeted resources for globally mobile families with a preventive care focus can be created.
Oversight
While we are a private company and not an academic institution, we went through a testing phase including input from an Indepedent Review team, which included members with significant expertise in: academic research, psychology, international school counseling, education, globally mobile families, and missionary member care, along with Adult TCKs who experienced trauma during childhood. 

Why Research?

One of our core values here at TCK Training is that all of our programs and services are grounded in research. At many times, we and other TCK Caregivers around the world are seeing things in our professional capacities that we find no research to speak into. For this reason we began to plan our own research projects, to answer questions that impact our work with Third Culture Kids of all ages, as well as their parents, other caregivers, and supporting entities.

In 2022 we created the position of Research Director and hired Tanya Crossman to fill the position. Tanya has researched TCKs for 10 years and was instrumental in the creation of both our 2021 and 2024 surveys. Since the institution of our Intern program in February 2023, we have also had a Research Intern on our team.

Investing in on-going research through staff hours is part of our commitment to contributing new research insights to the global TCK caregiver community. Research is and will always be the foundation of what we do at TCK Training, and we want to share what we learn with the whole community.