IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsoctx/v3y2013i2p204-216d25548.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Improving Early Detection of Refugee-Related Stress Symptoms: Evaluation of an Inter-Professional and Inter-Cultural Skills Training Course in Sweden

Author

Listed:
  • Solvig Ekblad

    (Cultural Medicine Unit, Department of Learning Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Tomtebodavägen 18A, plan 3, SE-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden)

  • Maria Carlén

    (Psychiatry Centre, Södertälje Hospital, SE-152 86 Södertälje, Sweden)

  • Christina Hägglöf

    (Social Welfare Unit, Södertälje Municipality, Nygatan 23B, SE-151 89 Södertälje, Sweden)

Abstract

Twenty-three of 26 participants, mainly women from six local agencies involved in the reception of refugees, completed a university course titled “Refugee-related stress and mental health—local cooperation”, which was spread over seven days in 2011. The course was based on evidence and clinical experience and was commissioned to serve as competency training by Stockholm County Council and Södertälje Municipality. It received funding from the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare. It was a continuation of an earlier one-week full-time university course from 2010 with the same title. As a result of a new law relating to refugee reception, which led to organizational change, the participants requested a continuation of the original course. The learning objectives were met (5.4 on a 6-point scale; 1 = strongly disagree, 6 = strongly agree). The general assessment of the course as a whole by the participants was 5.7 (on a 6-point scale, 1 = very unsatisfied, 6 = very satisfied). The participants thought that their skills had increased, and their perception was that they had significantly better control of their work situation following completion of the course. The most important findings were that participants from different agencies at the local level: (1) perceived that they had developed the sense that there was a local inter-cultural and inter-professional inter-agency collaboration in the reception of newly arrived refugees and (2) will continue efforts to stabilize and develop this together. This method of teaching, in terms of skills training, is not a “quick fix.” It is a process, and it needs support from those in power in order to continue.

Suggested Citation

  • Solvig Ekblad & Maria Carlén & Christina Hägglöf, 2013. "Improving Early Detection of Refugee-Related Stress Symptoms: Evaluation of an Inter-Professional and Inter-Cultural Skills Training Course in Sweden," Societies, MDPI, vol. 3(2), pages 1-13, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:3:y:2013:i:2:p:204-216:d:25548
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/3/2/204/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/3/2/204/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsoctx:v:3:y:2013:i:2:p:204-216:d:25548. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.