This project has hosted webinars since 2012 to promote learning, information sharing and to stimulate conversation on topics that we hope are relevant to your practice. Many of the archived webinars are part of the former project, the Refugee Mental Health Project. Since September 2017, webinars have encompassed the expanded scope of newly-arrived immigrants and/or refugees.
Our webinars are one-hour sessions that include a 30-minute presentation by professionals in the settlement, social or health services sectors followed by a 30-minute question and answer session where we encourage you to ask questions, pose scenarios and to generally discuss your practice with these experts in the field.
Upcoming Webinars
Thursday, March 30 (1:30 -2:30 EST)
Collective Care
With Jenn Gorham (Associate Director, Sexual Violence New Brunswick)
Collective Care refers to seeing members' well-being-particularly their emotional health-as a shared responsibility of the group rather than the lone task of an individual. It means the group commits to addressing interlocking oppressions and reasons for deteriorating health well-being within the group. It places emphasis on joint accountability with the aim of collective empowerment.
Staff and volunteers in the gender-based violence sector are impacted by the trauma they encounter in the course of their work. While many organizations take trauma-informed training to improve supports for the people at the centre of their care, the impact on helpers often goes unattended.
We at Sexual Violence NB (SVNB) see collective care as a critical practice in providing trauma-informed care. Collective care addresses the impacts that exposure to trauma can have on helpers working with traumatized individuals. It sustains helpers in their work and supports the delivery of trauma-informed services. This presentation will define collective care and offer some examples of how we at SVNB have implemented this practice into our work culture.
Jenn Gorham is the Associate Director of Sexual Violence New Brunswick (SVNB) and has been with SVNB for 17 years. She began her career with SVNB training and coordinating the volunteers who staff SVNB’s 24-hour support line as well as working in schools throughout the Anglophone West School District delivering workshops to youth on healthy relationships, consent and coercion. She is a trained Vicarious Trauma and Compassion Fatigue facilitator and has delivered workshops on trauma-informed principles for trauma-exposed workplaces to frontline workers throughout the province. She was the project coordinator for Enhancing Criminal Justice Response to Sexual Violence in New Brunswick, to research, develop, deliver, and evaluate a training initiative for criminal justice professionals on sexual violence. She is currently the project coordinator for Maintain: Strengthening Collective Care, a nationally funded project addressing wellness in trauma-exposed workplaces.
Thursday, April 20 (1:30 -2:30 EST)
Mindfully Muslim: A Faith-based approach when working with Muslim Refugees
With Dr. Yursa Ahmad
Did you know that immigrants represent 63% of the Muslim population in Canada? That's according to the 2021 census results. As millions of people from around the world make Canada their home, delivering mental health care and settlement services that integrate newcomers' culture is imperative for better adaptation, settlement and integration.
Mindfully Muslim “is a faith-based, culturally safe, trauma-informed, anti-oppressive group therapy program that combines teachings from mindfulness based interventions with wisdom from the Islamic tradition." Explore how an understanding of the sacred teachings from Islam can facilitate engagement, understanding, healing and therapeutic success while working with Muslim refugees.
Dr. Yusra Ahmad, MD, FRCPC, is a community & academic psychiatrist in Toronto. She graduated with a BA from the University of Chicago and an MD from the University of Toronto where she completed her residency in psychiatry.
Dr. Ahmad has specific expertise in trauma, mood & anxiety disorders as well as SPMI (severe & persistent mental illness) populations. She is dedicated to community work & advocacy around diverse issues such as marginalization, homelessness, poverty, refugee mental health, gender-based violence and the struggles of Muslim youth & families.
She created a trauma-informed group therapy program entitled Mindfully Muslim which blends mindfulness-based interventions with the sacred wisdom & teachings of Islam. She presented this program at the 2019 World Psychiatric Association Congress on Religion & Psychiatry in Jerusalem. Because of this work, she was awarded the 2019 Breakout Community Psychiatry Advocacy Award by the Ontario Psychiatric Association & her program was profiled in the centrefold feature article, "Race, Religion & Mental Health" in the Black Lives Matter edition of Chatelaine magazine.
A poet at heart, Dr. Ahmad loves to live in between the lines because she believes a lot of power & beauty springs from these liminal spaces. She cares deeply about people and their stories.
Recorded Webinars
Note that webinar recordings contain the presentation of the topic only; the question and answer session is not recorded.
- Specific populations and issues
These webinars highlight strategies for supporting particular immigrant and refugee groups, or highlight specific issues in supporting immigrant and refugee mental health. - Support and treatment considerations
These webinars will focus on specific considerations for providing effective treatment to recent immigrants and refugees. - Successful or promising practices
These webinars outline innovative and unique approaches/programs for supporting the mental health of newly-arrived immigrants and refugees.
