WORKING WITH REFUGEES, OTHER RELIGIONS AND CULTURES

1. WORKING WITH REFUGEES, OTHER RELIGIONS AND CULTURES

2. Immigration detention centers have been know to house over 100 cultures and religions at one time. • For this reason it isn’t realistic to take you through and prepare you for every culture that you will be working with. • And even if we did teach you this your chances of remembering it all as well as which culture every person belongs to would be very low

3. Instead it is far more useful and productive to give ways of working with different cultures that will fit with most of them • Even in Australia within your own culture one way of dealing with people will work well with one person and be offensive to another • So which ever skill you use the most import skill you need to have is the ability to observe to see what kind of effect you are having on others. • Even if you are in the right, if what you are doing is having a negative effect it should be altered or changed.

4. Most of the skills you need to learn to work with a variety of cultures and religions could be categorized into the following areas • Understanding the problems your client group faces • Verbal communication • Physical contact • Dress codes • Observation and listening to how you effect your client

5. UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEMS YOUR CLIENT GROUP FACES

6. CHILDREN, FAMILY AND ADULT SITUATIONS

7. CHILDREN • Most of our children have been inside immigration detention centers at one time or another • These children have found themselves usually in one of two categories • Community detention • Bridging Visa “E”

8. COMMUNITY DETENTION • In ‘community detention’ families remain legally detained whilst living in the community. They receive minimal financial support, sufficient to cover essentials, from the Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Affairs (DIMA). It is ALIV’s experience that families living in community detention generally remain isolated as they lack external family or social contacts and have little or no money for transport or recreation. This can compound the negative health effects that many still suffer from their time in immigration detention.

9. BRIDGING VISA “E” • Statistics • Numbers on BVE: As of June 2005 there were approx. 8000 people across Australia. Some live on this visa for up to 5 years • General Situation of BVE holders • Asylum seekers with BVE in the community face severe hardship, isolation and exclusion from social support. • BVE denies 95% of asylum seekers any work rights, Medicare or income support or access to mainstream services

10. Asylum Seekers cannot access government funded welfare agencies, such as Centrelink, Telephone Interpreter Services, Commonwealth funded settlement, housing support or Migrant Resource Centres. Asylum seekers with no relatives or friends to support them have no supports at all. They rely on the good will of church and community based agencies for their housing, food and medical costs. • Asylum Seeker Project (ASP), Melbourne, found BVE holders lived in ‘abject poverty’, experiencing:

11. High levels of homelessness, anxiety, depression, mental health issues and a general reduction in overall health and nutrition…high levels of family breakdown, including separation and divorce. The impact of the Bridging Visa E category was felt particularly by single mothers and young asylum seekers. • The conditions attached to BVE create unacceptable hardships for extremely vulnerable groups including children, single parents, pregnant women, those with serious medical conditions, survivors of torture and trauma and the elderly.

12. FAMILIES (SITUATION) • One of the biggest factors in child development is the break down of the family unit • Many family units have been damaged due to • Issues arising from war and other issues in countries outside Australia • Time spent in Immigration detention centers • Time spent in community with lack of recourses and care needed and other effects arising from isolation

13. ADULT DETAINEES • It has been well documented some of the effects Immigration detention centers can have on people. • Anger • Depression • Isolation • Suicide • Self harm • Divorce • Health issues • Family breakdown • Stress arising from uncertain futures • And then they are billed over $100 a day for this experience

15. VERBAL COMMUNICATION

16. Appropriate verbal and emotionalboundaries • Volunteers are not to discuss with children • Their cases • Any past incident that may create unpleasantness for the child • Volunteers are to encourage children to open up and feel free to communicate anything they need to including the above topics • Volunteers are not to ask leading questions • Volunteers are expected to remove a child from other people if the conversation is inappropriate for others to hear but would still be appropriate for the child to communicate

17. PHYSICAL CONTACT

18. Appropriate physical boundaries • All children and cultures have different appropriate and comfortable levels of physical contact • These can change on a daily and even minute by minute basis • These boundaries can also change with gender and person to person • The rule here is simple • Let the child or Adult initiate the contact

19. The reality of child development is that they need physical affection to develop well. But that physical contact in the way of play and hugs etc needs to be wanted and is much more beneficial when they initiate it. In other words don’t reject or deny them physical contact. • Obviously is the contact is inappropriate the person should be educated. Children are notorious for touching inappropriately as they have not yet received or understood the education associated with it

20. Men can get into more trouble in the area of physical contact for a number of reasons • Some cultures try to minimize or stop the contact between men and woman • One touch by a woman will be interpreted as innocent yet the same touch from a male can be interpreted differently and be concerning to many people • So following the previous rule of letting the child or adult initiate the contact will give you a good indication what that culture and person is comfortable with.

21. DO’s and DON’Ts • Children will give kisses. Discourage children kissing you on the lips and turn your head so they land on the cheek. Kisses should never be returned on the head. Kissing can get you into a lot of trouble and should be avoided, but in some cases kissing on the hand can be okay with children, but again still be avoided.

22. Hugs are okay if they initiate it. But also depending on the age of the child or adult should also be used with common sense • Patting a child or adult on the upper back or shoulder is fine. This is usually used for a well done kind of feed back. You should avoid the lower back, the buttocks, and in the case of girls the front chest area regardless of their age. • At no time is a volunteer authorized to use physical discipline • At no time is a volunteer authorized to use physical restraint accept where safety is the goal

23. Muslim Women • Once a Muslim woman enters puberty she usually starts wearing the traditional clothing on her head to usually cover her hair and sometimes face • At this point they are off limits to male physical contact. This includes things like the shaking of hands and pats on the shoulder • Men should understand this and not offer there hand for assistance but instead should what for them to offer theirs or in the case of first aid etc should ask may I apply this bandage or help you up etc. In most cases you will need to instruct a female on how to apply the first aid

24. But again if you end up with a situation where a muslin woman initiates touch of some kind, it is best to sometimes have a conversation on what she is comfortable or aloud to do.

25. DRESS CODES

26. Dress codes • Swimming • Non transparent t-shirts • Shorts that cover the upper thigh • Bathers may be worn underneath • There are different standards for different cultures. The above seems to fit all

27. Other programs • Wear comfortable clothes, which you can play sport in is preferred. • Shoes must allow you to chase after a child or follow them through unstable surfaces • Shoes must cover the entire foot inside detention centers • Singlet tops are not to be worn • Pants where underwear are visible upon bending over are not permitted, longer t-shirts are usually an appropriate solution for this • Cleavage is not to be visible

28. OBSERVATION AND LISTENING TO HOW YOU EFFECT YOUR CLIENT

29. The first observation you want to learn is the observing what others do well. What the client currently responds will to and try and duplicate it within your own personality • In many cases the research or hard work has already been done, so observing what already works is the best method • After you have a good grasp on what already works, you are then ready to start working on their next step of development

30. Space is the first thing you should use to judge if what you are doing is working • The degree to which someone has an affinity for you (or likes you) can be measured by how close in distance you can get before they start feeling uncomfortable. • The distance in front of a person they will let you get before feeling uncomfortable is different from the distance from the back

31. Attraction can be defined as a person wanting to get closer to you • In other words if you create a lot of fun and interest for a person they will naturally and a lot faster have an increased affinity of you and as a result will come closer and have less boundaries both physical and emotion • If for example a person you are working with has a comfort (or affinity) distance of 2 meters and you step into that zone, the person will become uncomfortable and have a lower affinity for you, you have just set back the time it will take to work with that person

32. Inviting someone into your space verbally is not always the best method as many are afraid to say no and will force themselves to be in an uncomfortable position

33. Signs of affinity • Facing you • Leaning closer to you • Being able to look at you with out nervously looking away constantly • Moving closer • Signs of lack of affinity • Facing away • Leaning back or away • Having trouble looking at you constantly • Stepping back or moving further away

34. You may have seen two people together where one wanted to get closer and the other further • A boy steps into the girls space, the girl steps back • The boy didn’t observe her uncomfortableness, and then stepped into her space again