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Mental health care to be provided for refugees in Devon

Friday, 18 March 2022 10:50

By Ollie Heptinstall, local democracy reporter

Devon County Council building (courtesy: Joe Ives/Local Democracy Reporting Service)

This comes after the crisis in Ukraine

A new project aimed at making it easier for refugees in Devon to receive mental health support is about to get underway.

The collaboration of researchers, service providers and refugee communities in Devon has won funding to develop ways of making it easier for those who have had to flee their country to get the help they need.

A report to a meeting of Devon County Council’s adult health and care scrutiny committee this week said: “Refugees are one of the most vulnerable groups in our community but language barriers and difficulty in understanding how to access healthcare can make it difficult for them to get help.”

The project, to be led by the National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration in the South West Peninsula (known as PenARC) will be working on developing a model to make finding help easier.

The report explained how: “engagement with the local community is a key aspect of the project. People who are refugees will be helping to develop the model while gaining research and design skills and employment.

“An advisory panel and local impact group will link the study to other refugee initiatives and networks, ensuring that the model is widely shared.”

Speaking at the meeting at county hall on Thursday, councillor Ian Hall (Conservative, Axminster) was full of praise.

“These people have come from situations we can only imagine. We’ve seen these areas on the news, but we haven’t breathed the air and walked the same walk they have.

“So well done whoever did this. It’s really good reading and I really, really do endorse this sort of approach,” he said.

It comes amid a refugee crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Around three million people have fled the country since the latest conflict began on 24 February, according to the United Nations.

The project, funded by the National Institute for Health Research, will run for two-and-a-half years and starts in May.

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