The UBC Global Health Initiative (GHI) presents this year’s first workshop on Refugee and New Immigrant Health. GHI workshops are open to students and faculty from all disciplines.
PLEASE RSVP if you haven’t already done so to angie.babuk@gmail.com
Subject: Refugee and New Immigrant Health
Date: November 17, 2010
Time: 6:30 – 9:00 pm (food at 6:30, workshop starts at 7:00 SHARP)
Location: MSAC Alumni Room – video-conferenced to IMP and NMP
Victoria – MSB 210
NMP – UHNBC 5011
Workshop description:
The workshop will address the key issues in refugee and new immigrant health and discuss some barriers and challenges. The speakers, all of whom have experience in working with refugees, will share their personal experiences and resources. They will discuss the Canadian policy on refugee intake and various everyday challenges that have an impact on this population’s health (transportation, culture, language, etc). Information will be provided on the types of resources available to you as a health care provider and to your patients in this population.
We are lucky to have three great presenters to lead this workshop, their bios are included below.
Dr. Martina Scholtens
Martina Scholtens is a family physician who has worked with refugees at Bridge Clinic in Vancouver since 2003. Her other interest is narrative medicine – clinical practice marked by the ability to recognize, elicit, absorb, interpret and be moved by patients’ stories of illness. Narrative medicine is particularly relevant to the care of refugees.
In the workshop, she will address the practical, day-to-day barriers that refugees face in accessing health care in British Columbia, including language, transportation, mental health and perceptions of medical screening. She will also share stories and resources and invite your ideas on how to improve refugee care.
Dr. Allison Henderson
Allison is a first year family medicine resident whose interest in refugee health began through involvement with refugee women and youth in London Ontario. Along with her colleagues, she founded a youth council that focused on providing refugee youth with leadership skills, ESL opportunities, healthy living, and a place to build community and a sense of belonging. She also coordinated a weekly sports program for refugee girls.
In medical school, Allison chaired the global health committee and was a founding member of the Global Health Task Force whose work brought about the creation of a funded global health department at the University of Western Ontario with a paid director. She was actively involved in refugee health through health promotion and education at an NGO called the Life Resource centre and through involvement with a student run initiative to conduct intake history and physicals of newly arrived refugees to accelerate their access to a family doctor.
Last year, she presented a case study of a Mexican refugee’s difficulty gaining access to health care at the annual Canadian Conference for Global Health. In Vancouver she has had the opportunity to work with Dr. Scholtens and others at the Bridge Clinic and is completing her residency research project at the clinic using the community based participatory research model of PhotoVoice to allow refugees to tell their own stories about health.
David Henderson
David is currently working for Kinbrace, an NGO that provides transitional housing for refugee claimants in the Vancouver area. Kinbrace supports and assists refugee claimants through accompaniment, navigation of bureaucratic systems, and advocacy. David and his wife recently moved from Ontario where he worked for two years with International Teams doing refugee settlement work and advising refugee supporting agencies. While in London he founded a community market, organized the London Ride for Refugees, and ran a soccer league for refugee youth. Along with his wife he led a weekly youth council consisting of youth from DRC, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Burma, and Afghanistan.
David grew up in Zambia, went to high school in Kenya, and moved to Canada for university. He has worked in Tanzania and Zambia in environmental community development since graduating in 2005 with a degree in environmental science.