Support Of Asylum Seekers Research Articles

Design of a service project that provides a model for interprofessional collaboration and layered learning within the refugee and asylum seeker community

Background: Development of an interprofessional service outreach within the refugee and asylum-seeker population gives pharmacy trainees the opportunity to develop healthcare skills and gain cultural awareness. Programme description: The interprofessional team prepared for the medical service trip through meetings, gathering supplies, and engaging in fundraising events. The team partnered with Siguiendo los Pasos de Jesús (SPJ) and Annunciation House while observing and partaking in service. A retrospective review of medical records was completed to develop the research project. Evaluation: A team of nine participated in a service project providing medical care and support for asylum-seekers. Layered learning and the importance of interdisciplinary communication were demonstrated within the team. The most common medical ailments for patients were respiratory, gastrointestinal diagnoses and headache/pain. Future plans: Service outreach offers the experience of caring for underserved populations and increases awareness of cross-cultural development, which is transferable in any clinical setting.

The politics of discretion: Authority and influence in asylum dispersal

This paper considers how discretion, understood as both a capacity to make decisions and a form of influence that is often hidden, operates within the accommodation and support of asylum seekers. Combining critical discussions of discretion with accounts of a ‘local turn’ in migration policy, I argue that discretion plays a key role in shaping how policy is implemented and offers insight into the changing governance of asylum at national and local levels. Drawing on empirical material examining the development of the UK's asylum dispersal system, the paper extends accounts of discretion beyond ‘street-level’ to argue for a focus on how discretion reflects different claims to institutional authority. Addressing four accounts of discretion in dispersal, I argue that tracing discretion can offer insights into how ‘implementation gaps’ in asylum policy are negotiated and how tensions between national and local governments are contained. Tracing discretion in this way may advance critical interrogations of power relations in welfare bureaucracies and develop understandings of institutional agency and influence within liberal democracies.

Latent tuberculosis screening and treatment among asylum seekers: a mixed-methods study.

Evidence on conditions for implementation of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI) screening and treatment among asylum seekers is needed to inform tuberculosis (TB) control policies. We used mixed-methods to evaluate the implementation of an LTBI screening and treatment programme among asylum seekers in the Netherlands. We offered voluntary LTBI screening to asylum seekers aged ≥12 years living in asylum seeker centres from countries with a TB incidence >200 per 10 000 population. We calculated LTBI screening and treatment cascade coverage, and assessed associated factors with Poisson regression using robust variance estimators. We interviewed TB care staff (seven group interviews) and Eritrean clients (21 group and 21 individual interviews) to identify programme enhancers and barriers. We screened 719 (63% of 1136) clients for LTBI. LTBI was diagnosed among 178 (25%) clients; 149 (84%) initiated LTBI treatment, of whom 129 (87%) completed treatment. In-person TB and LTBI education, the use of professional interpreters, and collaboration with partner organisations were enhancers for LTBI screening uptake. Demand-driven LTBI treatment support by TB nurses enhanced treatment completion. Factors complicating LTBI screening and treatment were having to travel to public health services, language barriers and moving from asylum seeker centres to the community during treatment. LTBI screening and treatment of asylum seekers is feasible and effective when high quality of care is provided, including culture-sensitive TB education throughout the care cascade. Additionally, collaboration with partner organisations, such as agencies responsible for reception and support of asylum seekers, should be in place.

Discursive Construction of ‘Bogus’ Asylum Seekers: Changing Support for Asylum Seekers in Britain

Discursive Construction of ‘Bogus’ Asylum Seekers: Changing Support for Asylum Seekers in Britain

The value of medical students in support of asylum seekers in the United States.

The global refugee/migrant crisis of displacement because of persecution and conflict carries staggering implications of ambiguity and loss for the individuals affected. In 2013, approximately 25,000 displaced people sought asylum in the United States; many of whom have experienced state-sponsored physical and psychological torture. With Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), several medical student clinics work closely with immigration attorneys and University and Community based clinicians to assist U.S. asylum seekers in their asylum claims. The Western New York Center for Survivors of Torture (WNYCST) was established in 2014 through Jewish Family Service of Buffalo and Erie County to aid asylum seeking torture survivors by providing person-centered and trauma informed care. The Center and the Human Rights Initiative at the University at Buffalo (UB) work together to provide forensic examinations for clients seeking asylum to document sequelae of torture. The students have organized the clinic such that all medical school years (1-4) are represented. Approximately 90 medical students from all years have received specific forensic training to enable them to act as scribes for the forensic exams. Students receive training in cultural diversity, the use of interpreters, and trauma informed care. Students integrate with local refugee communities and begin to understand interactions between the legal, health, social, and justice systems. The concerted efforts by student run clinics like the HRI at UB through organizations like the WNYCST can help to mitigate the trauma, and leave students with skills that will be of use for them throughout the trajectory of their medical training. (PsycINFO Database Record

State Failure, Polarisation, and Minority Engagement in Germany\u2019s Refugee Crisis

Talk about a ‘refugee crisis’ dominated Germany’s political discourse in 2015/2016. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of foreigners desiring protection shaped public and private debates. However, rather than taking the term refugee crisis for granted, this article suggests that critical experiences in Germany, and responses to them, were shaped by the failure of state institutions. In the same year, as further austerity measures were imposed on Greece, German citizens questioned the state of their own public infrastructure. Following privatisation and cuts to social services, national, regional, and local authorities lacked the capacity to respond adequately to newcomers’ needs. The sight of failing state institutions contributed to a sense of crisis. Simultaneously, however, the apparent state incapacity—particularly also in Berlin, the focus of this article—opened up spaces for emergent civil society actors, including minority groups. Muslims organised in associations could perform relevance as reliable citizens and raise their public profile. Different groups also put forward alternative visions of society. At the same time, government support for asylum seekers and the greater visibility of actors in a pluralist society pushed some conservatives towards a new far-right force: the Alternative for Germany party (AfD). The gaps in public administration that were revealed in 2015/2016 resulted in social polarisation left and right of centrist politics: nationalist conservatives rejected an increasingly multicultural country and found a new political home in the AfD, whereas left wingers and minority groups challenged austerity and claimed greater political representation for their views.

Making Sense? The Support of Dispersed Asylum Seekers

Reforms of the system for the accommodation and support needs of asylum seekers entering the United Kingdom (UK) during the twentieth and early twenty‐first centuries have meant that the support of asylum seekers has largely moved away from mainstream social work to dedicated asylum support teams. This article investigates how the workers engaged as ‘asylum support workers’ understand and make sense of their participation in the support of asylum seekers dispersed across the UK. By drawing on qualitative research with asylum support workers, this paper looks at how such workers make sense of their roles and how the ‘support’ of asylum seekers is conceived. The paper concludes that, by working in this political and controversial area of work, workers are constantly finding ways to negotiate their support role within a dominant framework of control.

UK responses to the asylum issue: A comparison of lay and expert views

AbstractThere is much political and media discussion about asylum in Britain and opinion polls indicate public hostility towards asylum seekers. The current research aims to contribute towards a greater understanding of public responses to this issue by exploring the social representations of asylum seekers. Social representations theory provides a useful framework for research on asylum as it conceptualizes public understandings of new and challenging social objects. Semi‐structured interviews conducted with lay participants and experts working in support of asylum seekers were thematically analyzed and the results were compared with existing media representations. These comparisons suggest that public representations of asylum seekers differ from formal discourses and are closer to media portrayals. Public respondents perceived public hostility to be greater than the attitudes evinced by the current sample would suggest. The findings suggest that opinion polls may exaggerate public negativity towards asylum seekers and indicate the need for accurate information to be disseminated through publicly accessible sources and for public engagement in debate about the issue. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002: Secure Borders, Safe Haven?

This article examines some of the major changes incorporated by the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, with special reference to asylum. It considers the extent to which the new legislation seeks to criminalize asylum seekers and to act as a deterrence. It focuses on three key issues of the day - the support of asylum seekers, the regulation of asylum seekers, and appeals.

Anti-racism, racism and asylum-seekers in France

Anti-racist movements in France have been characterized by their strong political orientation and their tendency to be highly centralized. However, in the past decade the increasing salience of the position of ‘new immigrants’, a term that in France is used to include asylum-seekers, has been accompanied by a shift in the form and content of anti-racist mobilization. Support for asylum-seekers has been provided by a multiplicity of specialist national and local organizations developing modes of solidarity that are more akin to welfare, social work or humanitarian aid than the more directly and overtly political interventions common among French anti-racists. At the same time local committees have developed in places of high tension, but at some distance from the political limelight of Paris. Lloyd examines some of these developments in the context of the crisis of provision for asylum-seekers in France. After setting out some basic information about asylum, undocumented migrants and the law in France she examines the political debate about ‘the new immigrants’ and racism. Comparing the relatively successful sans papiers movement of the 1990s with the difficulties of organizing among and with more isolated, transient and socially deprived asylum-seekers, she discusses the way in which this new set of issues has challenged the main anti-racist organizations and given rise to new actors and alliances.

We are All Boat People: A Case Study in Internet Activism

This paper uses a detailed case study in order to exemplify some key trends and characteristics of activist uses of the internet. It focuses on the We Are All Boat People campaign in support of asylum seekers, discussing this in relation to three main areas. First, it considers the campaign's media strategies in the context of what Scalmer has called ‘the dilemmas of the activist’ (2002: 41). It then discusses the campaign in the context of tactical media and its key methodology of detournement. Finally, the project is discussed as an example of what Tim Berners-Lee has termed ‘intercreativity’ (1999: 182–83).