Peer Support Groups: Evaluating a Culturally Grounded, Strengths-Based Approach for Work With Refugees

Abstract

Many refugees will face unique socio-emotional stressors before, during, and after resettling in their new home country. The program presented herein focuses on the use of para-professionals, peer educators, from within refugee communities to build upon the Center for Torture and Trauma Survivors Clubhouse model. Group leaders seek to provide supports that will: 1) decrease feelings of isolation; 2) build community networks and; 3) increase feelings of empowerment within the community. To accurately represent the fluidity of the refugee population in this metropolitan region, background is presented on an established refugee population from Iraq and a more recent influx of refugees of Bhutan (ethnic Nepali). The juxtaposition of the two groups underscores the importance of presenting a dynamic program that is peer-led to provide the supports necessary to acclimate to their new environment. Program evaluation results from groups run in 2016-2017 indicate that the groups have been successful in helping participants make friends, get information, become more independent, and feel better about life in America. Additionally, participants report a significantly higher number of individuals who they can “talk to about problems or worries” and connect to with a sense of trust within their ethnic community. Finally, the utility of other therapeutic and support processes, such as horticultural and expressive arts therapies, are discussed apropos work with refugee populations.

Resilience: Safety in the Aftermath of Traumatic Stressor Experiences

“…In contrast, other experiences, such encounters with continued discrimination could engender feelings of uncontrollability, and in addition challenge perceptions of the supports available to build a new life (Jorden et al, 2009 ). Perhaps for this reason, the creation of community social networks that decrease refugees' feelings of isolation and increase feelings of empowerment play an important role in their capacity to adapt to a new setting and to demonstrate resilience in the face of subsequent stressors (Block et al, 2018 ).…”

Gender-Sensitive Peer Counselling Groups in Times of Conflict Reflections on a Self-Help Support Group in Berlin

“…It is common for researchers and physicians to focus on the trauma that refugees have passed through; either before resettlement including political violence and war, during their routes to the host country and after their resettlement including their struggles with a new language, new social life, discrimination and integration. Therefore, any refugee will have been subject to some form of trauma in their lives either directly or indirectly (Block et al, 2018), and this explains why the majority of interventions focus on treatment of symptoms such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (ibid). Many interventions, yet, still lack the culturally sensitive, low threshold element that is proven to help refugees a great deal (Zellmann, 2017).…”

“…Previous studies show that it is of utmost significance not to label all refugees as suffering from some type of pathology because they are all individuals going through extraordinary circumstances (Block et al, 2018). Health care professionals should be conscious of cultural differences that may arise when interacting with refugees and to seek strengths-based and empowerment-based approaches for work with them (Abi Jumaa et al, 2019;Block et al, 2018).…”

A Scoping Review of Interventions Delivered by Peers to Support the Resettlement Process of Refugees and Asylum Seekers

“…While the content design and delivery were developed within a culturally sensitive 66 co-produced format, the composition of peer interventions that were group based, were 67 also co-produced. The studies reported on the importance of having a homogeneous com-68 position in terms of group membership, and this extended beyond ethnicity, with gender 69 and even age often sought out (Block et al, 2018;Stewart et al, 2012;Tol et al, 2020). The 70 Steward et al (2012, p. 525) findings exemplify this; 71 "Participants appreciated that female and male refugees met separately and that the 72 Somali and Sudanese refugees had separate groups.…”

“…In terms of the intervention's peers were trained in, two models were based on train-84 ing peers in peer support and then providing them with mobile phones with credit to 85 practice offering support to each other in order build social capital (Koh et al, 2018;Wol- (Block et al, 2018); Culture-Sensitive and Resource Oriented Peer (CROP); (Renner 90 et al, 2011), ALMA (Amigas Latinas Motivando el Alma/Latina Friends Motivating the 91 Soul); (Tran et al, 2013), Self Help Plus ( Purgato et al, 2021;Tol et al, 2020) and Pro-92 gramme Management Plus (Gaaff et al, 2020). The delivery and content of interventions 93 was diverse, for example, Paloma et al (2020a) reported including issues such as migratory 94 mourning (e.g., social network, language, culture, and status), and identifying personal 95 strengths and community resources to cope with these issues.…”