Effective Practices for Mental Health Screening Across Cultures

Many mental health screening tools are designed and tested with Western patients and clients in mind, and do not take into consideration how mental health problems present or are perceived within varying cultural contexts and communities. To provide truly effective mental health care and service referrals, screening must be conducted with attentiveness to these individual contexts and perspectives, fostering trust and improving treatment outcomes. This webinar will delve into the critical aspects of mental health screening practices for newcomers. Participants will receive practical guidance on selecting the most suitable screening tools, asking sensitive questions, and effectively utilizing interpreters during screening. Additionally, the webinar will explore insights from a recent research project on the development of a culturally validated mental health screening tool for resettled Afghan youth and their caregivers.

This webinar is designed for refugee service providers who want to learn more about mental health screening with refugee and newcomer populations. It will also be valuable for researchers interested in culturally adapting assessment tools.

After participating in this 75-minute session, you will be able to:

* Apply key cultural considerations and trauma-informed strategies when asking sensitive questions to newcomers
* Identify mental health screening tools appropriate for different newcomer populations
* Explain the implications of recent research regarding adapting and testing a culturally validated screening tool for Afghan youth

WEBINAR FACILITATOR

Caroline Dilts, LICSW, is working as the Refugee Program Manager at the Research Program for Children and Adversity at the Boston College School of Social Work. She has over seven years of clinical social work experience, working in home and community settings for children and families with a specialization in holistic care. Her current work focuses on strengthening resettled Afghan families through the Family Strengthening Intervention for Refugees (FSI-R), an evidence-based mental health program.

WEBINAR SPEAKERS

Matias Placencio-Castro, PhD, works as Senior Data Analyst for the Research Program on Children and Adversity (RPCA) at Boston College. At Boston College, he also serves as part-time faculty in the School of Social Work and the School of Education, teaching applied statistics, psychometrics, research methods, and program evaluation. His research interests include early childhood development, children and youth mental health, and quantitative research methods for the social sciences, with special emphasis on instrument development, statistical programming, experimental and quasi-experimental designs, and multilevel and structural equation modeling.

Farhad Sharifi, MSW, is a recent Afghan evacuee. He is a social worker and serves as a cultural expert in the Family Strengthening Intervention for Refugees project at the Research Program on Children and Adversity (RPCA) at Boston College. Previously, he was working with internally displaced populations in Afghanistan with Jesuit Refugee Services.

Nargis Ahmadi, BS Neuroscience, is a Research Assistant at the Displacement and Health Research Center at UC San Diego. She works in collaboration with RPCA at Boston College to refine culturally adapted mental health tools for resettled Afghan youth and their caregivers. A first-generation Afghan immigrant with a background in neuroscience, Nargis is dedicated to community-informed mental health care. Her previous work includes research on dementia, cognitive aging, and hypertension in displaced populations, and she currently supports patients as a TMS Technician for treatment-resistant depression.