Newcomer Youth Mental Health Project

Purpose and Approach

The Newcomer Youth Mental Health Project  focuses on newcomer youth (those who arrived in Canada within the last 5 years, and are between the ages of 14-18) from Afghan, Colombian, Sudanese, and Tamil communities. We have looked at how youth understand and conceptualize mental health, and what their diverse mental health needs, help-seeking behaviours, and promotion strategies are, with a view to making program and policy recommendations that reduce barriers and improve access for mental health services for newcomer youth.

We have used a mixed-method participatory research approach, which included qualitative and quantitative methods: focus groups, interviews, and a questionnaire comprised of three psychometric assessment scales.

Project Activities

We first selected and set up a Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) with youth from the different communities (above) and then provided training workshops on various project-related topics. We then consulted the YAC on the focus group and interview guides and pilot tested the questionnaire with them. We also hired 4 Peer Researchers who assisted with recruitment for focus groups and interviews.

We have conducted 7 focus groups and 16 in-depth interviews with youth and parents (from these communities), and service providers who serve these communities. We have also administered a total of 56 questionnaires to youth. We also held a youth-led conference with our YAC and Peer Researchers and have been disseminating preliminary findings at different venues.

Findings

Preliminary study findings indicate that settlement challenges and discrimination/exclusions are salient risks to the mental wellbeing of newcomer youth and their families. Click here to read a summary of findings that was published in Summer 2010 issue of Canadian Issues.

Key Partners and Collaborators

The Newcomer Youth Mental Health Project is an innovative community-academic research partnership.

Principal Investigators for this project are:

• Nazilla Khanlou (OWHC Chair in Women’s Mental Health Research at York University and Adjunct Professor, University of Toronto) and
•  Yogendra Shakya (Director, Research and Evaluation at Access Alliance Multicultural Health and Community Services).

Carles Muntaner is Co-Investigator (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the University of Toronto).

Funder

The project is funded by the Provincial Centre of Excellence for Child and Youth Mental Health at CHEO (Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario).

For more information please contact:

Tahira Gonsalves
Research Coordinator
Phone: 416.946.7409
Email: tahira.gonsalves@utoronto.ca