Asylum Seeker health services — research

Cabrini Outreach Annual Report 2020-21 Cabrini Outreach Annual Report 2020-21 Asylum Seeker health services

Development of a Screening Tool for Asylum Seeker and Refugee Mental Health (STAR-MH)

The Screening Tool for Asylum Seeker and Refugee Mental Health (STAR-MH), developed by research team Dr Debbie Hocking and Professor Suresh Sundram, has been taken up by a number of local agencies. These include the Cabrini Asylum Seeker and Refugee Health Hub, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), Monash Health Refugee Health, and IPC community health refugee program. It is also integrated into the referral form for Cabrini Outreach’s asylum seeker health programs. of a worker. The STAR-MH is currently available in 13 languages including English. The eSTAR-MH includes oral translations for individuals who are not literate.

The eSTAR-MH will be launched in the coming months. In the meantime, protocols are being finalised for trials of the STAR-MH in Italy and Malaysia to determine its effectiveness in refugee and asylum-seeking populations outside Australia.

A digital platform is underway to facilitate greater accessibility of the tool and expand to a global reach. This platform, the eSTAR-MH, will enable clients to complete the screening in their own language in the presence The first phase of an adolescent mental health screening tool has been completed and written up. This paper is currently under peer-review in an international journal.

The STAR-MH is currently available in 13 languages including English. The eSTARMH includes oral translations for individuals who are not literate.

Research fellow and clinical psychologist, Dr Debbie Hocking

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International development

We have continued to work closely with our international partners in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Ethiopia, New York and Papua New Guinea over the past year to orient our support to the most pressing needs of their local communities. Our partnerships are directed to supporting the health of women and children and our specific goals are to:

• Increase immunisation rates for women and children to lower the unacceptably high rates of maternal and infant mortality • Improve detection and treatment of cervical cancer

• Improve access to treatment for infectious diseases such as malaria,

HIV and tuberculosis — focusing on the higher vulnerability of women and children

• Lower rates of child malnutrition and infection.