Concern about mental health has skyrocketed since the COVID pandemic. In May of this year, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general of the USA, issued an advisory about another pandemic, one that preceded COVID-19 but was largely eclipsed by it — the issue of loneliness, affecting over half of Americans and cutting years from their lifespans. He prescribed intentional social connection — committing to friendship — and minimizing distraction, by switching off devices and learning to listen. Addressing loneliness, Dr. Murthy reported, would have a significant impact on physical and mental health.

For refugees who resettle in America, loneliness is typically already a pre-existing condition: having fled their home countries due to war, violence, or the threat of persecution, many refugees move to America without the support of many key relationships with family and friends they once relied upon.

Faresha (not her real name), an Afghan student in our ESOL class, was separated from her husband in the chaos at the Kabul airport during the 2021 U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan. She was ushered onto an American military transport plane and escaped the country; he did not. Her husband is still in Afghanistan, and Faresha is tirelessly working with U.S. immigration officials to bring him to the United States. Tragically, her story is not an unusual one among the refugee community we work with. In our 28 years of walking alongside global refugees who are rebuilding their lives in Atlanta, Georgia, we have seen firsthand that many refugees arrive feeling deeply lonely and having experienced some level of trauma.

Not all refugees can be said to be traumatized in the clinical sense, though some surely are. However, all refugees have experienced grief and loss, putting them at increased risk for adverse mental health outcomes. Our organization’s vision is for refugees to experience abundant life in flourishing communities; we have realized that our work is greatly enhanced when we incorporate holistic, trauma-informed practices that support overall social-emotional health in all our programs. This is even more important as we’ve observed that traditional Western approaches to addressing mental health (talk therapy, psychiatric medications, etc.) are often taboo in many of the cultures of the people we work with. More and more, we are exploring ways we can incorporate practices that are beyond the realm of traditional referrals to counselors, psychiatrists, etc.

In closing, what can funders do to support mental health of those they serve?  

  1. Prioritize organizations that foster human connections in every part of their work, even if that means going slower.
  2. Recognize the extra costs that accompany culturally informed work, whether that is the cost of creating welcoming spaces that promote recovery, or the cost of training refugee community liaisons as experts and teachers, rather than relying on interpreters for American-born experts and teachers.
  3. Encourage nonprofits to leverage the healing power of connection to nature on behalf of their community, whether through hiking, gardening, birdwatching, etc.
  4. Look for organizations that prioritize employing those from the community they are serving in order to build supportive connections with those who share language, culture, background, and experience.
  5. Challenge organizations to identify measures of outcome and impact that show change in social-emotional health and well-being, in social connectedness, and provide resources to increase their capacity in this area.

Read the full article about centering mental health by Kendra Jeffreys at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.