Reflective Practice Approach to Supporting Professionals and Organisations who are working with people from Refugee Backgrounds

The internalisation of terror and subsequent psychological presentation and the impact of trauma on families and communities, impose major challenges for professionals when engaging and working with people from refugee... [ view full abstract ]

The internalisation of terror and subsequent psychological presentation and the impact of trauma on families and communities, impose major challenges for professionals when engaging and working with people from refugee backgrounds. These challenges exist in a wide range of contexts; including but by no means limited, to counseling and health services, settlement support services and education. They are manifest at the individual worker level and are mitigated or intensified by the operations of socio-political, sector level and organisational systems.

It is common for professionals to experience emotions that can impact on the quality of their immediate work. Crucial capabilities such as the professional and their organisations’ capacity to identify and maintain appropriate boundaries and the ability to listen to and understand the experiences of survivors of extreme violence, can be affected. Furthermore professional’s emotional responses and challenges to their sense of efficacy and even the ways in which their world views are shaped affect their personal and professional lives beyond their current day to day work tasks. The need for reflective processes to manage the inherent risks and learn from presenting challenges has been well documented.

Reflective practice groups are a specific intervention that can be utilised to support professionals to reflect and consider in context; firstly, the role they play (and are systematically restricted from playing) in their clients’ lives and secondly; the ways in which they are in turn affected by their involvement in their clients’ lives. The Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture has developed, based on existing research and published literature, its Reflective Practice Approach when working with professionals who work with people from refugee backgrounds. This paper explains the rationale for this approach and describes the model developed with reference to case examples of how it has been implemented.