Definitions and explanatory notes
Anxiety disorders in refugees: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may arise after an extreme traumatic event. Such events may include natural disasters or war and conflict. It is possible for prolonged stress such as being imprisoned as well as sudden horrific events to cause PTSD. Symptoms include repeated flashbacks, an inability to stop dwelling on the event, feeling of detachment/estrangement from others, sleep disturbance, and difficulty concentrating. The incidence or severity of PTSD or PTSD-related disorders tends to decrease with time, although healing is slower in more traumatised persons and groups. Nevertheless, even in the long-term, refugees who have suffered PTSD have an increased risk of mental illness.
Acculturation: Adaptation to a different culture.
Asylum seeker: Someone who has fled their own country and applies to the government of another country for protection as a refugee.
CALD: Culturally and linguistically diverse.
Chronic unresolved grief in refugees: Through displacement and war, refugees lose their home, possessions, loved ones, and often, their sense of self. Any one of these losses might result in severe grief. Other losses that may cause grief include decisions made during war or flight from war, old ways of life not being valued in the new life, adjustment to the new culture and an uncertain future.
Culture: Can be defined as a set of guidelines which individuals inherit as members of a particular society, and which tells them how to view the world, how to experience it emotionally, and how to behave in it in relation to other people, to supernatural forces or gods and to the natural environment? (Helman, 1990).
Cultural competency: The ability to see beyond the boundaries of one?s own cultural interpretations, to be able to maintain objectivity when faced with individuals from cultures different from one?s own and be able to interpret and understand behaviours and intentions of people from other cultures without bias.
Cultural diversity: Refers to the wide range of cultural groups that make up the Australian population. It includes groups and individuals who differ according to religion, race, or ethnicity.
Multiculturalism: The term multiculturalism summarises the way Australia addresses the challenges and opportunities of our cultural diversity. It is a term which recognises and celebrates Australia's cultural diversity. It accepts and respects the right of all people in Australia to express and share their individual cultural heritage within an overriding commitment to Australia and the basic structures and values of Australian democracy. It also refers specifically to the strategies, policies and programs that are designed to make our administrative, social and economic infrastructure more responsive to the rights, obligations and needs of our culturally diverse population; promotes social harmony among the different cultural groups in our society; and optimises the benefits of our cultural diversity for all people in Australia.
New and emerging communities: These include communities:
- Lacking institutional resources and being unable to draw on the collective experience;
- Needing to attract members who are settling in and have growing family commitments;
- Which are not part of the existing network of funding;
- Where the numbers they call on are small and newly arrived;
- Which have not created a media and lack communications interstate and within a metropolis;
- Where family networks are likely to form a substitute for formal organisations due to lack of information about, or access to, wider services;
- Which lack completed family networks, numbers and collective resources, knowledge of existing services, or effective organisations within a national network; and
- Which are unfamiliar with submission based government funding and have little influence on political processes, while also having ineffective links with others in a similar situation. (Ethnic Affairs Commission of NSW, 1991).
Refugee: The 1951 United Nations Convention defines a refugee as someone who:
'Owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside of the country of his nationality and is unable or owing to such a fear is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.'
Transcultural mental health: Extends the definition of mental health to look at the interactions of individuals and groups within a culturally diverse environment, to identify specific risk and protective factors for those individuals and groups who may be marginalised within the dominant culture, and to address societal and structural issues within the environment in order to promote their mental health and wellbeing.
Transcultural services: Transcultural services promote access to mental health services for people from culturally and linguistically diverse populations. Transcultural services work with consumers, carers, health professionals and the community to promote positive attitudes to mental health and to ensure that the needs of people from culturally and linguistically diverse populations (including access, equity and cultural safety and appropriateness) are addressed at policy, planning and service delivery level.
