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Transnational shifts experienced by Syrian refugee young adults disrupt their lives. Many start their journey as children, transition into adolescents often in countries of asylum, and resettle as young adults in countries such as Canada with the dream to rebuild their lives. Too old (+16) for the traditional school cycle, they are encouraged into adult education (AE) as their only choice to complete their high school diplomas to obtain minimum wage jobs or continue to higher education. Their progress through AE continues their destabilization, particularly in terms of their aspirations, hopes and dreams. The authors focus on the educational journeys of this population who have largely been forgotten by policies and programs for refugee integration. Drawing upon 29 interviews with Syrian refugee young adults in Quebec, using a theoretical framework of migration/aspirations and critical race theory, the authors highlight how disruption is perpetuated in their education after their arrival rather than stability.

In 2017, 22% of the Canadian population are foreign-born immigrants and one in five is a visible racial minority. Canadian schools and classrooms mirror the diversity of the society and are populated with more and more immigrant and refugee students from diverse ethnic, cultural and linguistic backgrounds each year. Uprooted from their home countries and familiar environments, immigrant and refugee students experience barriers and challenges in new living and educational environments. The increasing number of immigrant and refugee students and their unique educational needs and challenges have called building welcoming and inclusive schools a priority in Canadian education system. This chapter addresses the urgent need for high-impact policies, practices and praxis to build welcoming and inclusive schools for immigrant and refugee students through cross-sector community engagement. Based on several empirical studies, critical and extensive literature review and authors’ professional reflections, this chapter introduces a theoretical framework of building welcoming and inclusive schools for immigrant and refugee students and introduces the promising strategies of engaging community stakeholders, including educators, students, parents, governments and community organizations and agencies.

The purpose of the scoping study was to understand the experiences of refugees with disabilities and their families in the US from expert service-provider perspectives, including gaps in resources and services. The authors also investigated challenges and opportunities for technology intervention in this space.

The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with six experts who serve refugees in the United States. The authors asked them about the experiences of refugees with disabilities and their families and inquired into challenges and opportunities for technology access for this population.

The authors found that refugees and their families are significantly impacted by disabilities and mental health challenges. Additionally, while refugees have access to resources and services, they face a number of structural barriers, including the need to navigate a complex healthcare system, geographic placements that sometimes make it difficult to access employment or healthcare services, and issues with accessing public transit.

The main limitation of the current study is that the authors did not collect data directly from refugees with disabilities.

The authors offer several directions for practical improvements based on the findings, including improving structural support for refugees with disabilities and incentivizing health care providers utilizing more culturally aware language services.

While the number of refugees worldwide has doubled in the past decade and there is consensus that a significant number of refugees experience disabilities and mental health challenges, few projects have looked into the technology needs of refugees with disabilities. The exploratory study provides population-level insights on the experiences and accessibility barriers of refugees with disabilities in the United States.

Far too often refugees are being researched on; however, the purpose of this chapter is to research with refugees while exploring the ways refugee youth in a higher education protracted context can become producers of research and knowledge. I sought to collaborate with my co-researchers / co-authors through a community-based action (CBA) approach at Kakuma Refugee Camp to assure that their youthful (ages 18–35) voices were included in this study. A CBA approach seeks to speak with participants, not for them. They learned about the research process, why research is needed, and how we can produce it together. Using a critical-hope framework, that is, a pedagogical tool that uses a critical theory lens to address unjust systems through meaningful dialogue and empathic responses, we co-led 30 psychosocial peace-building education (PBBE) courses in Kakuma and Nairobi, Kenya. Data were collected from the researcher and co-researchers’ reflective logs on our own observations in the PBBE courses. A thematic analysis approach was chosen in order to avoid focusing on the norms and/or creating specific norms that dictate, demand conformity, and silence divergent voices. There were three themes: time, place, and person.

Photography is used in research because of its appeal for communicating, expressing feelings, sharing experiences, raising new awareness of participants and potential audiences, clarifying social issues, and framing plans for action. Taking and sharing photos has become easier particularly because of ready access to devices with cameras. Yet, using photographs in research can undermine anonymity and confidentiality (Noland, 2006), and unanticipated unauthorised dissemination of digital images raises ethical concerns for researchers using photography in their research methods (Brigham, Baillie Abidi, & Calatayud, 2018). In this chapter, the authors discuss the participatory photography method and provide practical suggestions for carrying out ethical research using participatory photography. The authors highlight the cultural, social, and contextual situatedness of ethics by drawing on our own research project with youth with refugee experience.

Resilience is an increasingly important concept that contributes to sustainability and wellbeing of a community. Asset-based community development (ABCD) may offer promising approaches to boosting community resilience in Australia, especially within marginalised groups.

A scoping review was conducted to conceptualise existing literature on ABCD approaches to building resilience. Research databases were searched with relevant details.

Thirty-three sources were identified as meeting the inclusion criteria and were reviewed in terms of six themes: integration and identity, health, mental health, education, employment and community planning. Issues identified by the literature within these themes can be alleviated through asset-based approaches. Implications for planning of asset-based programs and policy change are discussed in light of the findings.

The results of this study provide several implications for practise, policy recommendations and future research into this area. Results suggest that increasing capacity around asset-based coping mechanisms, such as support networks through religious and cultural groups, would promote community development and foster resilience. Furthermore, policy on refugees in multiple areas, such as psychological service provision and employment, should be redesigned in a way that acknowledges their complex and diverse needs and facilitates their integration into the community. Though multiple ways to achieve this goal have been explored in literature, a sustained and broader approach is necessary to see widespread change. Further research and funding are required to explore and implement appropriate responses. Based on the findings and discussion above, the authors make the following policy recommendations. Service providers need to be aware of and incorporate culturally appropriate programs in the areas of mental health assessment and intervention, education and employment. The trauma-informed approach should be used when dealing with refugee groups and other groups who have faced hardships. Government policy should focus on improving community engagement to create and strengthen social networks, which are vital in boosting integration into the community and increasing health education and access to services. Government should focus on asset-based approaches in designing education and employment integration programs to promote social belonging and community engagement, and thus, community resilience, which will consequently have beneficial individual and group outcomes. The current governmental policy surrounding refugees should be overhauled with the goal of successful refugee integration in mind, such as incorporating the ability for refugees to access vital services such as employment and skills transferability programs. Due to current policy, these services are inaccessible to a large portion of refugees, hindering their integration. Government needs to create specific guidelines for the provision of psychological services to refugees to improve the quality of mental health services available to this group.

This paper comprises an original data analysis of the relevant existing literature by the project team. The process was rigorous, and no content of the analysis has been published previously except the material published by other authors. All previously published materials were duly acknowledged.

This review aims to examine the literature on refugees’ and asylum seekers’ resilience, its historical evolution, key principles, assumptions and recommendations, while focusing on the Canadian context.

A narrative literature review has been applied to this manuscript. This approach allows the integration of a wide scope of literature and perspectives, from academic literature to grey literature (e.g. governmental reports and dissertations). Nevertheless, the limitations of this type of review were also discussed.

In spite of the gaining popularity of the resilience lens, which emphasizes an individual’s ability to overcome adversities and stressful events, more work is required for its effective integration into health practice, programs and policies, particularly as it relates to refugees’ and asylum seekers’ mental health care.

Careful consideration of refugees’ and asylum seekers’ mental health needs and Canadian mental health service delivery and policies is a critical first step in reaching such a goal.

This study aims to systematically review and conceptualise service-related research on refugees to identify gaps in the literature, derive future research avenues and stimulate interdisciplinary research and practice to improve well-being of refugees.

This study uses a systematic literature review (SLR) of 102 journal articles published or available online from 2010 to 2020.

Ten themes are identified across the three phases of the refugees’ service journey (entry, transition and exit). Most of the articles focus on the exit phase. One-third of the literature analyses refugees’ access and adaptation to health-care services. The dearth of research on other refugee services reflects the failure to attend to all aspects of service provision across all phases of the refugee service journey.

While the ten themes across the three phases require scholars’ and practitioners’ attention, different aspects of the SLR’s findings necessitate further investigation. To reinvigorate research and practice, and stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration, a novel Communities of Practice approach is suggested.

Practitioners and policymakers should place more focus on the entry and transition phases of the refugee service journey.

Lack of research and engagement with the first two phases of the refugee journey might come at the expense of refugees. More service support is needed to buffer the journey from homeland to host country.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this SLR on refugee-related services is the first of its kind from a service research perspective.