Holistic Care for People from Refugee Backgrounds
People from refugee backgrounds face a number of challenges when accessing health care services. Understanding their background and journey can give all health care professionals a greater understanding of how to provide best-practice health care. Refugees and internationally displaced people may have experienced many traumatic experiences relating to conflict, persecution, environmental degradation and poverty, resulting […]
WentWest Stories, STARTTS: Tohan’s Story
The NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS) is a non-profit organisation providing culturally appropriate psychological treatment, support and community interventions. STARTTS’ South Sudanese Youth Ambassador (SSYA) Program helps young people increase their mental health literacy, social connections and wellbeing. The program provides ongoing support to a pool of […]
WentWest Stories, Recovery College: Ishmael’s Story
The Western Sydney Recovery College was developed to codesign and build the capacity of people with lived experience of mental health concerns through a series of courses, training sessions, and workshops. These courses assist clients on their recovery journeys while also increasing carers, friends, family, mental health staff and service providers’ knowledge, skills, and […]
WentWest Stories, H2H: Margherit’s Story
The Bilingual Hospital 2 Home (H2H) program helps culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities connect to mental health services, increase their awareness of mental health, increase their resilience and reduce hospital admissions. WentWest, the Western Sydney Primary Health Network, funds Bilingual Hospital to Home to deliver community-based support groups and person-centred, recovery-oriented, trauma-informed services. […]
Healing the Scars: Ground-breaking Mental Health Programs for Refugees
Western Sydney is extremely fortunate to be one of the most multicultural regions in Australia, with many different nationalities calling it home. The 2021 Census indicates that 52.6% of the Western Sydney population was born outside of Australia, much higher than the NSW average of 34.6%. With 1 in 5 people across Australia experiencing a […]
WentWest Stories, STARTTS: Anita’s Story
The NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors (STARTTS) is a non-profit organisation providing culturally appropriate psychological treatment, support and community interventions. They help refugees, asylum seekers, new migrants, communities in cultural transition, and members of the CALD community heal from trauma and rebuild their lives in Australia. WentWest has […]
Communicating COVID-19 to CALD Communities
Half of Western Sydney’s population was born outside of Australia, and 54% of households speak a language other than English at home. The diversity of our community is something we celebrate as a region, and we can be proud of the steps that we have taken in the primary care sector to build accessible, culturally appropriate health services. Now, as we face the […]
Improving Refugee Health in Our Community
People from refugee backgrounds and Asylum Seekers are one of the community groups that present with the poorest health outcomes. They have higher rates of chronic diseases and mental health problems than migrants due to past experiences of exposure to violations of their human rights, persecutions, exposure to civil war or traumatic scenes, deprivation as well as post-migration stressors. Environmental change and unfamiliarity with Australian healthcare services systems and procedures add more challenges to accessing […]