Working with Refugee/Asylum Seeker Children and Families Forum – MELBOURNE

Working with Refugee/Asylum Seeker Children and Families Friday 21 May 2010

Workshop content

Prof Louise Newman

9.30am 11.00am This forum will review the psychological and emotional issues facing children and young people seeking asylum and refugee status in the Australian context and will look at current issues in immigration detention impacting on children and adolescents. We will discuss approaches to psychological support for refugee children and their families and the moral and ethical issues involved in this work

Ida Kaplan

11.15am 12.45pm This presentation will address distinctive issues when working with children, adolescents and families of refugee background. Pre-arrival experiences characterised by exposure to violence and loss, systematic persecution and forced displacement will be considered along with a host of additional factors associated with the challenge of resettlement. They range from the broadest contextual factors, such as international security concerns and ongoing zones of war and conflict, to the local context, especially the quality of service systems in the areas of health, education and employment, and community attitudes. The composition of the family in Australia, dynamics of family life and personal resources are also fundamental considerations. Every encounter with people of refugee background is a crosscultural one and important practice and service delivery issues arise from this fact alone.

Pamela Rycroft

1.30pm 3.00pm In this presentation, Pam will be talking about the highs and lows of working with an openended, multi-family group program of asylum-seeker families, called ‘KidsZone’. She will discuss some of the particular issues for kids in families caught in the limbo of the process of seeking permanent residence, as well as some of the issues for the volunteer counsellors and child workers. About the speakers

Prof Louise Newman

Louise Newman is the Professor of Developmental Psychiatry and Director of the Monash University Centre for Developmental Psychiatry & Psychology. Prior to this appointment she was the Chair of Perinatal and Infant Psychiatry at the University of Newcastle and the previous Director of the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry. She is a practising infant psychiatrist with expertise in the area of disorders of early parenting and attachment difficulties in infants. She has undertaken research into the issues confronting parents with histories of early trauma and neglect. Her current research is focussing on the evaluation of infant-parent interventions in high-risk populations, the concept of parental reflective functioning in mothers with borderline disorders and the neurobiology of parenting disturbance. Professor Newman is involved in the education of psychiatrists and a range of mental health professionals in the areas of attachment theory and infant-parent interventions. She is the Convenor of the Alliance of Health Professions for Asylum Seekers and an advocate for the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. She is the current President of the Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists.

Ida Kaplan

Dr. Kaplan is Direct Services Manager at the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture (VFST). In that role she oversees client services, is involved in the development of service models for refugees and asylum seekers and has had extensive experience, locally and internationally training professionals in the provision of appropriate interventions for survivors of torture and trauma. Her interests are in the intersection of mental health and human rights issues in understanding recovery from trauma. Very recently she and her colleagues have completed research on the effects of long term detention.

Pam Rycroft

Pam is a psychologist and family therapist who has worked in mainstream psychiatry and community mental health, ambulance crisis line and private practice, as well as working with The Bouverie Centre since 1986. Her special interests are single session frameworks, sibling and grief issues and the unique contribution of children in families. She currently combines clinical work with supervision, training and consultation, and works as a volunteer counsellor at the Asylum-Seeker Resource Centre in West Melbourne. Venue MINDFUL Centre for Training and Research in Developmental Health Building C, 50 Flemington Street, FLEMINGTON.

Please see directions and parking details on the registration form

Registration Form

Working with Refugee/Asylum Seeker Children and Families 21 May 2010 Session Time: 9.30 am 3.00 pm (registration from 9 am)

Registration Details: Registration is compulsory. Please complete details below Cost: $75.00 (gst free) payable prior to the day by cheque or credit card.

Venue: Mindful, Building C, 50 Flemington St, Flemington Vic 3031 Catering: Morning tea and a light lunch provided. Parking: No parking available on site

All day parking is available as follows:

Mooltan Street (no restrictions on a Friday), Cashmere St and other streets in this area (restrictions apply check parking signs). There is also a handy pedestrian access from 115-117 Mooltan St to the back gate of the Mindful building (Building C)

Please visit http://www.mindful.org.au/page.asp?departmentID=196 for a map of the area or further information contact Mindful mindful-info or 03 93710203