To celebrate this year’s Scottish Refugee Festival, Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership’s (HSCP) South Glasgow Health Improvement Team organised an online event on 21 June.  

The event was an opportunity to raise awareness of some of the local HSCP services working to support refugee communities and people seeking asylum in Glasgow City. 

Over 50 people from a variety of HSCP services and third sector organisations, gathered online to increase their knowledge of services and make connections.  

Six insightful speakers showcased their services and explained current challenges. These included:

•    Scottish Refugee Council
•    Glasgow Psychological Trauma Service
•    We Are With You
•    The Asylum Health Bridging Team
•    Social Work Asylum and Refugee Service
•    Glasgow South Health Improvement Team

Stephanie MacLean, Health Improvement Practitioner said: “The theme of this years’ Refugee Festival was ‘Hope’, and whilst speakers described the challenging circumstances faced by local communities and providers, everyone outlined their hopes for the future and shared examples of good practice.  
“Some of the positive themes emerging were recognising the benefits of public awareness to aid integration; reinforcing collaborations between services to meet community needs and hopes for a more compassionate political and legislative field that embeds human rights at its core.”  

The importance of small wins was acknowledged when supporting people to equip themselves with the information and resources that they need to improve health and wellbeing, particularly when people’s lives are affected by national policies that services have little to no influence over.  

Dr Nina Koruth from the Glasgow Psychological Trauma Service encouraged people to think about how we can provide the opposite of traumatic experiences for people.  Nina said: “We need to co-create services and environments that evoke feelings of safety, trust and purpose for service users and communities.”  

In the closing session, Melih Caner Inancli, Health Improvement Practitioner, outlined the work to develop a local ‘What’s On Directory’, which lists Glasgow-based organisations providing support and free activities to asylum seeker and refugee communities.  
Melih said: “This was developed in response to feedback from our HSCP’s Asylum Health Bridging Team patients who highlighted social isolation as a significant barrier to integration.” 

“Further events are planned to share knowledge and encourage working together to meet the needs of local refugee and asylum seeker communities.”

More information from melihcaner.inancli@ggc.scot.nhs.uk