Demystifying Strengths-Based Services: Fostering Refugees

Demystifying Strengths-Based Services: Fostering

Refugees’ Resilience in Resettlement

Recognizing the inherent strengths of refugee individuals, families, and communities is an important starting point

for health, social work, and human service professionals. This brief information guide aims to equip those working

in U.S. refugee resettlement with evidence-informed strategies to deliver strengths-based programming.

What is a Strengths-Based Approach?

A strengths-based approach is one that focuses on

people’s resilience instead of their deficits.

Professionals who use this approach recognize that

all people have strengths and leverage these

assets to help individuals, their families, and their

communities succeed.

Service providers who work with refugee clients may

wish to use a strengths-based approach for a variety

of reasons. First, focusing on resilience engenders

trust and strengthens the client and provider

relationship. This approach also has the potential to

Pulla, V. (2017). Strengths-based approach in social work: A distinct ethical advantage.

International Journal of Innovation, Creativity, and Change, 3

(2), 97-114.

Three Strengths-Based

Questions to Ask Clients

1. What has worked for you

before?

2. What does not work for you?

3. What might work for you in the

present situation?

enhance refugees’ overall wellbeing by celebrating

their unique strengths and cultural assets and by

helping them identify their long-term goals in

resettlement. Finally, using a strengths-based

perspective provides an opportunity to identify

supportive resources in refugees’ families and

communities.

Recognizing and Fostering Resilience

Resilience has been referred to as “ordinary magic,”

meaning that all individuals possess the capabilities

needed to overcome adversity. Service providers are

in a unique position to work with clients to identify

resilience-promoting resources in their families,

communities, and networks as well as to remind

clients of their own strengths.

Although this is not an exhaustive list, there are

several common factors that strengthen refugees’

resilience in post-migration settings.

Factors that Promote Refugees’ Resilience

 Individual Factors

 Proficiency in host country language

 Spirituality or faith in a higher power

 Previous experiences

 Family & Household Factors

 Support from family members

 Performing meaningful household roles

(especially for refugee elders)

 Success of younger generations

 Community Factors

 Friendship and support from peers, especially

those from one’s ethnic community

 Support and guidance from religious leaders

and communities

 Ongoing support after the initial

resettlement period

 Cultural, Political, & Eco-Social Factors

 Ability to maintain cultural and religious

traditions

 National policies that support integration

Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development.

American Psychologist, 56

(3), 227-238.

Tippens, J. A. (2019). Urban Congolese refugees’ social capital and community resilience during a period of political violence: A qualitative study.

Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies

. Advance online publication. doi:10.1080/15562948.2019.1569744.

Adapted from Green, B. L., McCallister, C. L., & Tarte, J. M. (2004). The strengths-based practices inventory: A tool for measuring strengths-based

service delivery in early childhood and family support programs. Families in Society, 85(3), 326-334).

10 Principles for Implementing

Strengths-Based Practices

1. Be empowering. Base services on strengths,

not deficits. Work with clients to identify their

strengths and their ability to solve problems.

2. Be culturally humble. Recognize culture as a

source of strength. Help clients maintain cultural

traditions while adjusting to a new place.

3. Build supportive relationships between

program staff and clients, their families, and

their communities.

4. Improve relationships within and across

families and communities. Identify ways to

strengthen refugees’ supportive networks.

5. Develop and expand community

engagement and outreach efforts as you

work to recognize clients’ supportive networks.

6. Be sensitive to refugee communities’

different histories and socio-political

contexts and acknowledge how these

contribute to both challenges and strengths in

resettlement.

7. Build relationships and coalitions with

service providers outside of refugee

resettlement to ensure clients and their families

are supported beyond the initial resettlement

period.

8. Partner with refugee families and

communities to identify and solve

problems.

9. Identify goals. Work with individuals, families,

and communities to identify their goals. Then

help them identify stepping stones to meet

these goals.

10. Adapt services to meet the diverse needs and

strengths of individuals, families, and

communities.

Strengths-Based Practices and Strategies

Evidence to support programs and interventions that

promote refugees’ health, psychosocial wellbeing,

and integration in a real-world context is still

emerging, and there are currently no best practices

or gold standards.

5-6

Nonetheless, there are a range of “promising

practices,” or interventions that have shown success

with one or more refugee groups. The following

strengths-based practices have shown success with

refugees resettled in high-income countries. This list

is not meant to be comprehensive but rather to

provide an overview of promising strategies.

Group Models

Group models (also called group visit models) are

interventions that bring individuals together to

address a shared challenge or problem. Group

models with refugee populations, for example, have

focused on health promotion, psychosocial health,

and integration and social wellbeing.

After

completing group interventions, refugee participants

often have improved mental health (e.g., reduced

psychological symptoms), broadened friendship

networks and enhanced social support, better

quality of life, and improved English skills.

7-8

This strategy is strengths-based because it fosters

social connections, providing a space for individuals

with refugee backgrounds to exchange ideas and

problem-solve together.

The following factors should be considered when

developing group visit models:

 Facilitation. Successful groups are facilitated

or co-facilitated by trained peer supporters or

lay health workers. These individuals have

shared experiences and can serve as

interpreters as well as cultural liaisons between

refugees and program staff.

 Group size and composition. Most evidence

suggests that groups should be small (~5-12

Murray, K. E., Davidson, G. R., & Schweitzer, R. D. (2010). Review of refugee mental health interventions following resettlement: Best practices and

recommendations.

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry

(4), 576-585.

Richard, A. C. & Leader, K. (2018).

A case for strengthening evidence-based understanding of refugee integration.

Penn Institute for Urban Research.

Halcón, L. L., Robertson, C. L., & Monsen, K. A. (2010). Evaluating health realization for coping among refugee women.

Journal of Loss and

Trauma

(5), 408-425.

Goodkind, J. R., Hess, J. M., Isakson, B., LaNoue, M., Githinji, A., Roche, N., ... & Parker, D. P. (2014). Reducing refugee mental health disparities: A

community-based intervention to address postmigration stressors with African adults.

Psychological Services

(3), 333.

Sullivan, A. L., & Simonson, G. R. (2016). A systematic review of school-based social-emotional interventions for refugee and war-traumatized

youth.

Review of Educational Research

(2), 503-530.

Rousseau, C., Beauregard, C., Daignault, K., Petrakos, H., Thombs, B. D., ... & Hechtman, L. (2014). A cluster randomized-controlled trial of a

people) and focus on individuals with similar

characteristics to facilitate conversations among

participants. These characteristics might include

language, ethnic group, age, or individuals with

a shared experience (e.g., pregnant women).

 Competing priorities. Interested and eligible

individuals may have work- and family-related

responsibilities that make it difficult for them to

participate in time-consuming programs.

Arts-Based Models

Some examples of arts-based programming to

improve refugees’ wellbeing and integration include

drawing, music, photography, quilting, creative play,

and drama interventions. These interventions have

generally focused on art therapy and have largely

targeted children, adolescents, and women.

Examples of outcomes include improved mental

health and enhanced school performance.

Many arts-based interventions are strengths-based

because they necessitate cultural humility by

privileging refugees’ perspectives and expertise.

Interventions that include sharing art through

exhibits or with family and community members are

strengths-based because of their emphasis on

refugees’ broader social and structural networks.

There are several factors to consider prior to

developing and implementing arts-based

programming, including:

 Facilitation. Interventions in this area are

generally facilitated by art therapists.

 Target group(s). Some arts-based

interventions have shown success with

individuals from different cultural and ethnic

groups. In one school-based study, adolescent

participants who had been raised in the host

country viewed the intervention as exacerbating

problems because it separated them from host-

country peers.

Extra care should be taken

when identifying participants.

Community Outreach & Peer Models

Finally, community outreach and peer support

models have shown success improving refugees’

health, wellbeing, and social integration. Peer

support and community outreach are separate but

intertwined concepts that are often used together to

promote refugees’ wellbeing.

These are broad umbrella terms that encompass

different models, such as community health workers

(CHWs), lay workers, patient navigators, and peer

support specialists. Peer supporters are themselves

members of the community who undergo specialized

training. These models have been used for

community development, to increase access to

health and social services, and to address health

disparities.

11-12

This approach is strengths-based because it

leverages the cultural expertise, ideas, and language

skills of community members.

The following considerations are important when

developing and implementing peer support and

community outreach programs:

 Training and support. Peer supporters and

CHWs have shared cultures and experiences

with community members, often including

shared hardships and trauma. This work can be

emotionally, psychologically, personally, and

professionally challenging. Care is needed to

help peer supporters establish boundaries and

develop self-care routines while maintaining

community members’ trust. Ongoing

professional training helps enhance peer

supporters’ self-efficacy and skill-development.

 Inclusion. Although peer supporters provide an

important “insider” perspective for work with

refugees, it is important to remember that no

individual person represents an entire

community. Extra care is needed to solicit ideas

and input from those whose voices may be

unintentionally excluded, including women and

elders.

classroom-based drama workshop program to improve mental health outcomes among immigrant and refugee youth in special classes. PloS One, 9(8).

Shommu, N. S., Ahmed, S., Rumana, N., Barron, G. R., McBrien, K. A., & Turin, T. C. (2016). What is the scope of improving immigrant and ethnic

minority healthcare using community navigators: A systematic scoping review.

International Journal for Equity in Health

(1), 6.

- Scott, K., Beckham, S. W., Gross, M., Pariyo, G., Rao, K. D., Cometto, G., & Perry, H. B. (2018). What do we know about community-based health

worker programs? A systematic review of existing reviews on community health workers.

Human Resources for Health

(1), 39.

Conclusion

It is important to remember that all people have

strengths. Refugee clients, their families, and their

communities have overcome tremendous hardships.

Recognizing the perseverance and resilience needed

to start over in a new place is an important starting

point when working with refugees. Strategies that

build on these strengths, rather than focusing on

deficits, have the potential to improve client-provider

trust, celebrate unique cultural assets, and support

long-term integration and wellbeing.

Resources

Centers for Disease Control Community Health

Worker Toolkit:

This online resource includes

courses, recommendations, and training materials

for community health workers (CHWs), a specific

peer supporter model.

The Guide to Community Preventive Services (“The

Community Guide”):

This free and comprehensive

online resource includes a collection of evidence-

based interventions to improve health and prevent

disease.

The IRC received $1,194,063 through competitive funding

through the U.S. Department of Health and Human

Services, Administration for Children and Families, Grant #

90RB0052. The project is financed with 100% of Federal

funds and 0% by non-governmental sources. The contents

of this document are solely the responsibility of the

authors and do not necessarily represent the official views

of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,

Administration for Children and Families

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