I want to share what my branch of the CMHA started. It's the first of its kind in Canada, funded by the federal government through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. We've embedded holistic, trauma-informed mental health care in settlement agencies. It is specific to our region. We called them “welcome centres”. Our team was embedded in the welcome centres to provide care, so that these people didn't have to get referred out of the settlement services.
We had a nurse practitioner to deal with the health care issues, as well as specialized, culturally competent mental health workers. We also partnered with trauma specialists, so that we could deal with people who had family issues, settlement issues and physical health issues. This is because newcomers and refugees may not want to talk about their mental health. It may present as health care issues, but then when we dig deeper, there are underlying health costs.
The answer is that you have a holistic team that has embedded primary care along with specialized treatment that is culturally competent for newcomers and refugees and that has a trauma-informed approach. It cannot be siloed. You have to work with the community to embed services together, so that they're seamless and integrated, and they build the capacity of settlement workers to also recognize and refer appropriately.
Thank you.