It’s been a mentally challenging year for many and newcomers are no exception.
Guelph-Wellington Local Immigration Partnership (GWLIP) is conducting a study on newcomer youth between the ages 16 to 25 to understand the broader challenges they are experiencing with mental health in Guelph and Wellington County.
“We don't have the answers yet, we don't know the situation, that's why we’re conducting the research to understand exactly what they know. Do they know about available services? Do they access these services? How do they feel about it? What barriers they may be facing and we will connect with our community partners to address these barriers,” said Leen Al-Habash, project manager at Guelph Wellington Local Immigration Partnership.
The Newcomer Youth Mental Health Study is a partnership between the GWLIP and the Centre for Community Based Research who are preparing the survey and analyzing the results. The survey will be conducted online from Oct. 29 to Nov. 16.
“We want to hear directly from people so that we can improve services and make services more relevant for this population,” said Janna Martin, researcher at Centre for Community Based Research.
Martin said the study has two parts: First, to investigate newcomer youth experiences with mental health and explore their experiences and challenges with support services in the area and; second, get recommendations on how to improve mental health outcomes for newcomer youth and how to better support immigrant provider organizations.
Al-Habash said the LIP’s role is to work with community partners to ensure that the settlement process for newcomers is as smooth as possible.
Al-Habash said the LIP identified three key priorities for newcomer settlement which include access to services, education and cultural connection,
“When we speak about access to services, what we work on is enhancing coordination and collaboration among community programs and services to provide immigrants and their families with timely, relevant and clear tools to access and navigate support,” said Al-Habash.
“Newcomers are not different than average in terms of having mental health issues. That's something across the board for people.”
She said newcomers have an extra challenge of adapting to a new setting, disconnecting from their usual networks, finding employment, making new friends and possibly dealing with trauma if they came from a conflict area.
“To add to this, obviously COVID-19 did not help. It comes with all the challenges of the lockdown, changes in the circumstances, changes in the lockdown, changes in the access to services, that adds to the mental health challenges for everyone and newcomers and youth are no exception.”
Al-Habash said the LIP estimates an approximate 500 newcomer youth entering Guelph and Wellington County every five years. In recent years, most of the newcomers have been from the Philippines, China, India, Eritrea, Bhutan, Syria.
Martin said the Centre for Community Based Research is also looking to recruit newcomer youth and their parents for a focus group to conduct research on Monday and are also open to conducting individual interviews for those who are interested. Those interested are asked to contact the GWLIP.
“With COVID-19 and other challenges right now, it's been challenging for people to attend these focus groups so that's why we would like to leave some flexibility in case we conduct these individual interviews likely online so everyone can stay safe,” said Martin.
“By newcomers attending these interviews and focus groups, we’ll be able to learn from their perspectives and to provide recommendations that will improve services.”
