Mental Health Support for Youth from Immigrant/Refugee Backgrounds

Many school personnel feel underprepared to support the social/emotional health of our immigrant and refugee students.

As a mental health worker in schools, you are equipped with foundational helping skills, but you may need professional development to help you use best practices with special populations present in your schools. One such population is youth from immigrant/refugee backgrounds.

This asynchronous course will cover:

• four core stressors (trauma, isolation, resettlement, acculturation)and increased empathy for the migration journey (pre/during/post)
• ways that newcomer stress and trauma may present in classroom andsocial settings, and strategies to support students
• mapping professional standards onto best practices for newcomeryouth, including direct and indirect services, planning andassessment, community engagement, and foundational services(including advocacy); and
• a hands-on assignment to create a service plan for your schoolsetting, with feedback from instructor and peers.

This course begins January 8, 2024.