MIGRATION & MENTAL HEALTH Conference

An estimated 281 million people were migrants in 2020. Racism, discrimination, and stressful experiences encountered before, during, and after migration pose a huge risk to the mental health of migrant populations. Yet many migrants continue to experience challenges accessing mental health support within our healthcare systems. While there is growing evidence from different fields on ways to enhance the mental health of migrants, structural inequities in care are still significant.

This conference aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and end-users to discuss and reflect on the current state of research, policy, and practice on migrant mental health and the responses of states, healthcare systems, and civil societies. A diverse group of researchers from global mental, history, and philosophy, practitioners, and policymakers will share their knowledge and experiences in this one-day event. The conference will be an opportunity to share evidence and good practices but also to identify structural injustices that continue to cause suffering and contribute to poor mental health among some of society’s most vulnerable groups.

Our event will also serve as a platform to inform mental health policies, discuss how the Danish 10-year action plan for mental health can become more inclusive, and respond to the needs of migrants.

If you plan to attend the conference, please send an email to hejdi.abdelhamid@sund.ku.dk and maria.castaner@sund.ku.dk

Event organizer: Maria Marti Castaner, Center for Migration Ethnicity and Health, at the Department of Public Health, Copenhagen University

Agenda

8:30-9:00 Breakfast

9:00-9:15 Welcome: Maria Marti Castaner

9:15-9:45 Keynote: Ana Antic, History, culture, and mental health

9:45-11:15

Panel 1
Karen-Inger Karstoft: Traumatic exposures and symptoms of (complex) PTSD in Displaced Ukrainians in Denmark
Francisca Gaifem: Association between discrimination and mental illness among Syrian refugees in Lebanon
Lena Skovgaard Andersen: Understanding the etiology of alcohol misuse among South Sudanese refugees in northern Uganda: A qualitative study

Panel 2
Jacob Lind: The long-term impact of extended and extreme housing insecurity on children fearing deportation. Retrospective narratives of young adults in Denmark and Sweden
Arash Setoodeh: Life Entrapment or Trampoline? Understanding existential life experiences of Iranian rejected asylum seekers in Copenhagen’s drug scene
Loth Andersen & Liv Bjerre: The impact of integration policy on immigrants’ mental health

11:15-11:30 Coffee Break

11:30-12:00 Keynote: Wietse Tol & Ezio Di Nucci, Structural injustice as a framework for addressing mental health in vulnerable populations.

12:00-13:00

Panel 3
Simon Ruben: The adapted MindSpring program for Ukranian refugees”: A mixed methods study of an early psychosocial group intervention.
Kirstine Fjordback-Trier: How the mother’s group project New mom in Danmark supports women with a refugee or ethnic minority background.
Jacqueline Ndlovu: Scaling up mental health services in humanitarian settings: barriers and facilitators for a guided self-help intervention in Uganda.

13:00-14:00 Lunch and poster session

14:00-15:00 Round table with mental health practitioners and organizations in Denmark
Participants: DIGNITY (Linda Nordin), Competence Center for Transcultural Psychiatry (Jessica Carlson), Muhabet (Pernille Agerbæk), Red Barnet (Ditte Shapiro), keynote speakers

15:00-15:30 Keynote: Mina Fazel, Rethinking mental healthcare to serve a diverse population

15:30-15:45 Concluding remarks from the organizers

15:45-17:00 Refreshments and art, Because a mother never stops bleeding by Carolina Echeverri M