Refugees in Utah
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Presented at University of Utah/ College of Social & Behavioral Science Course # and name: SOC 4674/6674 Global Health
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Refugees in Utah
- 1. Sarah Al-Obaydi, MBChB, MPH Visiting postdoctoral scholar, University of Utah November, 18th 2013
- 2. Refugees in general Who helps refugees during the period of resettlement? My experience with UHHR Questions and Answers
- 3. A Refugee is someone who “ outside of his country and unable or unwilling to return to that country because of a well-founded fear that he/she will be persecuted because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion membership in a particular social group “ An Asylee is a person who meets the definition of a refugee but come on his/her own and proves there after that return to his/her native country will result in his/her assassination or improper imprisonment.
- 4. There are over 43.7 million refugees and internally displaced people around the world.
- 5. Annually the president of the United States signs an agreement to specify the number of refugees to be admitted to the States each year. In 2013, up to 70,000 refugees.
- 6. 1. Adaptation stage: 1 week- 6 months families are focused on tasks Getting settled, establish legality, know how to get things done (e.g: getting apartments, Social Security number, jobs..etc)
- 7. 2. Honeymoon Stage: relief of pressure from war and famine back home. 3. Destabilization stage: 6 mo-2 yrs depression arises from feeling of isolation. nothing is like “back home”
- 8. Restabilization stage: 2-7 years They decide what to keep from their culture and what to take from the new one. Final Stabilization: 7-10 years Immigrants and refugees take their new identities.
- 9. Estimated 25,000 refugees have been resettled in Utah In 2013, about 942 refugees have been resettled Mostly: Bhutanese, Iraqis and Somalis
- 11. Of the 10 voluntary agencies that deals with refugee resettlement in the U.S, only two are in Utah. International Rescue Committee (IRC) http://www.rescue.org/us-program/us-salt-lake-city-ut Catholic Community Services (CCS) http://www.ccsutah.org/
- 12. 1. Housing 2. Employment and Public Assistance 3. Education 4. Healthcare needs and Services
- 13. 8 months - 2 years. Then they are either left to their abilities or get some assistance from other non-profit organizations . Examples: Asian Association of Utah and the Utah Health and Human Rights
- 15. The mission of Utah Health and Human Rights (UHHR) is to help refugees, immigrants, asylum seekers, and asylees heal from the physical and psychological impacts of torture and rebuild their lives. http://www.uhhr.org/
- 16. Over 25,000 refugees have been resettled in Utah Up to 35% of refugees are torture survivors 57% of Iraqis and 79% of Somalis About 15,000 torture survivors live in Utah Torture survivors are more at risk of chronic diseases
- 17. Modified the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT) to meet the culturally different needs of Iraqi refugees.
- 18. 1. Depression 2. Lack of sleep 3. Exercise 4. Nutrition 5. Cultural difference 6. Language barrier
- 19. Topic Main Discussion Reinforcement Sleep Sleep specialist: physiology of sleep 1. MOS sleep survey 2. Relaxation exercises Diet Nutritionist 1. Recipe modification 2. Healthy snacks by group & discussion 3. Handouts in Arabic& English Exercise Exercise students 1. Follow-up every week 2. Women’s only exercise session at Peak’s Academy
- 21. Attendance Implement learned methods Solution? Social Research!
- 22. “I lost 13 kg! This group has been very good for my health, very encouraging. I’ve enjoyed being together in this group and I want the group to keep going. I am no longer eating red meat everyday, only 1 time a week now. I am eating much more fish and white meat instead of red meat. I am now making Tabsi by baking, not frying.”
- 23. Utah Health and Human Rights 801-363-4596 heidi.justice@uhhr.org www.uhhr.org Thank you! شكرا Merci bien! ________________________________________
Editor's Notes
- UNHCR .
- According to UNHCR (united nations high commissioner for refugees) Refugees typically escape their countries to another country which is called “ country of first asylum” and they are kept in camps for many years, where they are brought to UN attention and they are approved for a third country resettlement
- For fiscal year 2013, up to 70,000 refugees will be admitted to the US http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/28/presidential-memorandum-annual-refugee-admissions-numbers http://jobs.utah.gov/refugee/information/stats.pdf
- When a new refugee or immigrant resettle in a new country , there are 5 stages that they go through before being completely stabilized in that new country.
- Honeymoon usually co-exist with the first stage
- We can see that I takes a decade or sometimes more for a refugee or an immigrant to settle in the new country
- (942 according to office of refugee resettlement)
- I put their websites for more information about their work, or if anyone is interested in volunteering IRC and CCS do almost the exact same job, they receive the refugee family from the airport, find a place for them to live, help them with donated furniture, clothes..etc, help them with issuance of SSN, jobs, getting food stamps, medicaid and all adaptation stage needs. .
- 2. Includes application for social security number 3. There are ESL classes that refugees can attend to learn/improve their English but the problem is that most of them have kids and work that they are unable to attend those classes regularly All refugees are examined and screened for communicable diseases e.g) TB, HBV within the first 30 days of their arrival All refugees receive Medicaid for 8 months if single , 2 years if family.
- IRC and CCS serve the refugee for 8 months if single (including food stamp and medicaid), 2 years if family,
- You can notice that unlike IRC and CCS, UHHR (also AAU) help immigrants and asylum seekers
- It is estimated that over 25,000 refugees have been resettled in Utah . The majority of these refugees live in the Salt Lake City area. Refugees living in Utah come from over 40 countries. It is estimated that 5-35% of the world’s refugees are torture survivors, the most extreme form of trauma exposure. In some populations, such as the Iraqi and Somali, the estimates of torture survivors are 57% and 79% respectively. Utah is home to both of these populations. It’s likely that Utah has over 15,000 survivors living here. Many torture survivors suffer from depression, anxiety, and/or PTSD. Many have chronic pain. There are a number of medical studies that document that trauma survivors are at an increased risk of developing chronic disease as compared to a non-traumatized population. One example of this is that in the general population, there is a 5% prevalence of diabetes mellitus, while in Cambodian torture survivors the prevalence of diabetes is 20%
- This program was developed to help Cambodian torture survivors 10 years ago, so I, with the help of a team from nutrition, exercise and UHHR modified it to meet the culturally different needs of Iraqi refugees.
- The UHHR holds a bi-monthly social groups for men and women so what we did was to meet with each group and asked about their main concerns before modifying HPRT. After that, we created an 8 week curriculum which work on all those element during each session, in addition to administering 4 surveys before and after those sessions to check for the effectiveness of the wellness group.
- Guided imagery exercise and mouthful exercise
- Many participants shared stories about the difficulties they are facing due to language barrier especially in doctors appointments. Many of them had their clinics appointments cancelled (more than once) because the interpreter was not available and they didn’t know that they have the right to have a phone interpreter if the in-person interpreter was not present, so we developed this card to give to the participants in hope it will solve the problem.
- Some challenges I believe we faced during the first group, I believe that attendance was the most important challenge, we started with 13 clients but some of them dropped out and some used to attend irregularly, their main cause was transportation (most of them live in the west while UHHR office is in downtown, and the family usually owns one car which the husband uses to go to work, and most ladies don’t know how to use public transportation). Due to cultural differences, most husbands don’t sit at home and care for the kids when the woman is busy. The other point was exercise , again because most women can’t find time for themselves while caring for kids and doing house stuff. Change is hard, and it is harder to try to change without an established in depth study of the social life of the group you are trying to implement this change to. I believe each refugee group needs to be studied to understand their perception about the new culture they are living in, about certain ideas such as exercise, diet, and the difference between their culture and the western culture and how can we work on that. Before trying to help them get the best of both cultures.
- Even if you helped one refugee this means a lot due to how much they suffered before coming here
- Shukran – thank you in Arabic