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Working with Immigrant Women: Issues and Strategies for Mental Health Professionals

 

Working with Immigrant Women addresses the gap between the needs of newcomer women and established structures and practices in Canada’s mental health care system.

With an interest in changing paradigms in mental health practice, the multidisciplinary group of authors—including researchers, mental health practitioners, health promoters, community development workers, university professors, diversity trainers, program coordinators and community mental health advocates—analyzes issues affecting women’s mental health and illnesses within an immigration and settlement context, critically examines literature and current research and suggests practice strategies for mental health professionals working with this population.

Working with Immigrant Women highlights the intersecting oppressions experienced by women while emphasizing their strengths and resiliencies. It also demonstrates how women are active participants in shaping their mental health and responding to mental health problems.

Topics include:

  • theoretical perspectives
  • recognizing social determinants of depression, the role of spirituality, issues around interpretation and barriers to accessing services and their implications for practice
  • working with specific groups: Sudanese, Caribbean, lesbian, refugee and older women and girls
  • critical concerns for women: trauma, intimate partner violence and postpartum depression.

The authors provide innovative approaches that mental health professionals can use to enhance current practice and ensure equitable, relevant and comprehensive care. This book is a valuable resource for health care professionals, administrators, educators, researchers and policy-makers, and is an ideal course text.

​Book | ISBN 978-0-88868-535-3 | 360 pages | Published: 2008 | English |
Product Code: PG124 | $39.95.

 

Table of Contents

 

Acknowledgments

Preface

Introduction

Part 1: Understanding the Context of Immigrant Women’s Lives

  • Emerging Trends in Canadian Immigration and Challenges for Newcomers

Part 2: Theoretical Perspectives

  • Theoretical Perspectives and Conceptual Frameworks
  • Are Sensitivity and Tolerance Enough? Comparing Two Theoretical Approaches to
  • Caring for Newcomer Women with Mental Health Problems

Part 3: Current Realities for Immigrant Women and New Paradigms for Mental Health Practice 

  • Social Determinants of Depression among Immigrant and Refugee Women
  • Recognizing Spirituality as a Vital Component in Mental Health Care
  • The Community Interpreter: A Critical Link between Clients and Service Providers
  • Services for Women: Access, Equity and Quality

Part 4: Working with Specific Groups

  • Newcomer Girls in Canada: Implications for Interventions by Mental Health Professionals
  • Women at the Centre of Changing Families: A Study of Sudanese Women’s Resettlement Experiences
  • Separation and Reunification Challenges Faced by Caribbean Women and Their Children
  • Counselling Lesbian and Bisexual Immigrant Women of Colour
  • Practice Implications for Working with Refugee Women 
  • Addressing Older Women’s Health: A Pressing Need

Part 5: Highlighting Critical Mental Health Concerns

  • Trauma Work with Latin American Women in Canada
  • Intimate Partner Violence among Immigrant and Refugee Women
  • Postpartum Depression among Immigrant Women

Part 6: Conclusion

  • Future Directions

About the Editors 

About the Authors 

Download an order form for Working with Immigrant Women (to come)

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