This document suggests how practitioners can contribute to improving the accessibility, quality and effectiveness of services for this population, based on what young people who were refugees said about their experiences of using Australian mental health services.
In 2016 HealthWest received a small grant to enhance the work of the public mental health service system in the western metropolitan area of Melbourne in responding to refugees and asylum seekers who have a mental illness, or who are at risk of experiencing an episode of acute mental illness.
There is no screening tool for major depressive disorder (MDD) or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in asylum-seekers or refugees (ASR) that can be readily administered by non-mental health workers. Hence, we aimed to develop a brief, sensitive and rapidly administrable tool for non-mental health workers to screen for MDD and PTSD in ASR.
This resource provides information about culturally informed ways to support the mental health of refugee and asylum seeker children. It aims to support practitioners from a range of mental health, social work and community-sector backgrounds who work with children and families from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds.
Children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds may have specific experiences which affect their mental health. It is important to use a social determinants lens when exploring the factors that contribute to the mental health of children from CALD backgrounds.