For a community to sponsor – to adopt – refugee families from war-torn parts of the world is a profoundly humane act. But it is also one freighted with a million details.
I have talked about these details – housing, food, language training, schools – with several sponsoring committees here on the Coast and in Vancouver and Toronto, and I have been greatly moved by the hard and selfless work being done.
But a nagging question remains: Are we, as a welcoming and resourceful community, fully aware of the mental health challenges our adopted Syrian families will likely face?
The U.N. Refugee Agency reports that an average of 75 per cent of refugees from war zones suffer major symptoms of depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Children are especially vulnerable.
It is not just brutal war. Ceaseless travel, separation of family members, and displacement from home are significant factors in the high rate of PTSD among refugees.
The studies cited by the U.N. dealt primarily with refugees from the Balkans, for which numbers are abundant, but experts say that the results can be reliably applied to families fleeing war in the Middle East.
Are we, as a nation, ready for this? The answer is: not quite. We’ve got the wagons, but we haven’t yet circled them.
In an interview, Dr. Morton Beiser, a psychiatric epidemiologist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, said: “It is important that we develop resources quickly and effectively. We really have to get our act together.”
Dr. Kwame McKenzie, of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, said: “You can decrease the risk significantly if you are careful what you do when people come to the country.” What this means is to have mental health resources in place, should they be needed.
Happily, by this standard, the Coast is as ready as it can be. Between Sunshine Coast Community Services and Mental Health and Addiction Services, the resources Dr. McKenzie mentioned are in place.
This is good, but there are two wrinkles.
First, PTSD can often sleep – lie undetected until a trigger sets off symptoms. One therapist I spoke with told me that something as innocuous as moving from grade school to high school can be enough to bring on the nightmares and panic attacks typical of children who have fled war.
This means that we need some kind of monitoring capacity, some way to sense when things are about to go sideways. I have not been convinced we have that ability.
Second, there are unique cultural stigmas associated with mental illness. In some cases, there is outright denial, in others, reluctant acceptance. It is one thing to have expertise at the ready. It is another matter entirely to exert a meaningful clinical effort.
There are at least three groups/clinics on the Lower Mainland that specialize in specific cultural differences in relation to mental health treatment. This is good news, especially in the context of the very high level of cultural awareness on the Coast.
Several local people I talked with in the course of reporting for this column asked why I was writing about something so negative. To this I would say that far from trying to rain on anybody’s parade, I am simply shining a light in a place few people have looked.
