Creating Effective Refugee Community Partnerships: Two Perspectives

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Description:

Diversity and Inclusion is an AUCD priority in alignment with AIDD's diversity initiative. To showcase and encourage best practices around the network, AUCD proudly invites you to participate in our first in the series of Diversity and Inclusion Webinars, "Creating Effective Refugee Community Partnerships: Two Perspectives". We will feature Dr.  Jean E. Beatson, training director for the Vermont Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (VT LEND) program. She will share her experience in engaging VT refugee groups to build and sustain a diverse and inclusive VT LEND. The webinar will also feature Dr. Hyojin Im, Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work, who will talk about her work in engaging and developing sustainable programs and interventions for the refugee communities of VA, Malaysia and Kenya.

AIDD and AUCD both prioritize this initiative and encourage full network participation in this important series of webinars. We urge every center to register and participate.

A webinar from the AUCD's Diversity and Inclusion Blueprint Team.

Presenters

Dr. Jean E. Beatson

Dr. Beatson is the training director for the Vermont Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (VT LEND) program and responsible for overseeing all program components. VT LEND is a HRSA MCHB grant, focusing on inter-professional collaboration, cultural competency, family and person centered care, autism and other neurodevelopmental disabilities, and leadership in Maternal Child Health. In collaboration with the VT LEND faculty and staff, Dr. Beatson takes the lead in curriculum and program development; inter-professional education; maintaining university and national program connections; mentoring trainees, fellows and new faculty; strategic planning; and grant writing. She is the liaison between the Department of Nursing and VT LEND, a guest lecturer in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, and a member of graduate nursing students’ thesis and projects committees. Dr. Beatson has been faculty at UVM since 1996. Her research and scholarly writing includes cultural and linguistic competence, person and family-centered care, refugee mothers raising children with disabilities, and inter-professional education.

Dr. Hyojin Im

Dr. Hyojin Im, PhD, MSW, MA, an Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work (VCU SSW), has extensive experience working with traumatized refugee communities, both international and domestic. Dr. Im has led several community-based participatory research projects to improve mental health and social integration of refugees, partnering with multilateral stakeholders such as UNHCR, IOM, and international/local GOs and NGOs as well as CBOs. Working with the Center for Victims of Torture CVT, she has been involved in Healing in Partnership project to develop and implement culturally grounded screening for trauma-related symptoms and build capacity of community for mental health referrals and services in Minnesota. Funded by Annie E. Casey Foundation, she investigated how unique challenges that refugees face during migration and resettlement interact with social capital and community integration in the U.S. She also developed and implemented multiple intervention and evaluation projects in Dadaab refugee camp and Nairobi, Kenya (including Peace Education Program by UN/National Council of Churches of Kenya), which led to a series of community-based refugee protection projects for displaced Somali refugees, funded by USAID. She is currently working with UNHCR – Malaysia and local partners to integrate mental health services into primary care clinics and build cross-cultural competency in the host community.

While continuing her research agenda for urban refugee mental health in international settings, Im has built community mental health partnerships and projects in Richmond, Virginia. Supported by DBHDS and Refugee Mental Health Initiative of Virginia, Im developed a multi-tiered refugee mental health care model and providing trauma-informed cross-cultural psychoeducation (TI-CCP) training and intervention curricula that are culturally adapted to refugee communities. She is currently teaching Clinical Social Work Research and International Social Work Practice at VCU SSW.

Please Note:

• There is NO cost for this webinar.
• CEUs are not offered for this webinar.
• A Certificate of contact hours will be provided.
• For disability accommodations contact email Anna Costalas or call 301-588-8252 a minimum of five days in advance.
• This webinar will be archived.