Summary

Australians have more than 300 different cultural origins, speak more than 300 languages from nearly 200 nations, and practice more than 100 religions. Islam is the second largest religion comprising 2.6% of the population. Most Muslims are immigrants or diaspora of South Asia, or descendants. Muslims strong sense of obligation to Islam informs their ways of life, but it is mostly invisible in Australia's mainstream policy, health, and welfare services. Our study assessed the subjective quality of life of adults from a Muslim community affiliated with the Adelaide Mosque in metropolitan South Australia. Using a mixed-methods research design, data were collected via a cross-sectional survey incorporating the Multicultural Quality of Life Index (MQLI) and qualitative group interviews. The survey (n = 98) found that women had a lower quality of life than men, and married participants had a better quality of life than non-married participants. In two focus groups, participants (n = 18) reported feeling overwhelmed and isolated, primarily related to a lack of ‘Muslim-friendly’ health, welfare, and social support services. Greater opportunities for religiously informed services that respect Muslim religiosity and performative ways of life would benefit the community studied, in particular the women. While findings from our study are not representative of all Muslim perspectives in Australia, they reveal a dialogic interchange between gender differences and matrimonial status and cultural variances that may exist in the concept of well-being. While such religious considerations are needed in multicultural practice, in both discrete and mainstream service, respect for religiosity in Australia’s health, welfare, and sociopolitical systems fall far behind many other nations. Much more needs to be done, since the delivery of religiously appropriate services is crucial for the multicultural quality of life of Muslims, and for the achievement of truly multicultural and inclusive nations.  

Keywords (separate with commas)

Australia, Muslim, multicultural, quality of life, well-being 

Summary

Intervention strategies cannot be universally applied to all groups or communities due to the inherent diversity in contexts and needs. Immigrant survivors facing intimate partner violence (IPV) encounter numerous language and cultural barriers when seeking help; thus, they turn to faith leaders for help. However, these faith leaders, who are also immigrants themselves, frequently lack training in IPV prevention. Additionally, attempts by community organizations to engage with them have yielded limited success.To tackle these challenges, Religious Leaders for Healthy Families (RLHF) was established. RLHF provided training to immigrant pastors on IPV prevention through virtual case simulations and workshops and facilitated their connection with community organizations for IPV intervention in Asian communities. RLHF was evaluated through a randomized controlled trial focused on the Korean American community in Chicago and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas.The researchers partnered with two Asian American survivor-serving community organizations for the project. To ensure the seamless involvement of partner organizations without burdening them, each organization hired a project coordinator funded by the grant. A bi-weekly online meeting facilitated collaboration between the researcher/practitioner team, enabling joint decision-making on scientific methodology, program development, survey construction, data collection procedures, planned analyses, report creation, and scientific presentations.Over five years, this partnership significantly improved the researchers’ capacity to develop culturally appropriate programs. Notably, 102 Korean faith leaders received training in IPV prevention and intervention. This initiative also forged a robust collaboration between community partners and faith leaders, opening\ new doors to IPV prevention and reshaping the perspectives of Korean faith leaders who have a greater appreciation for the agencies' assistance.The project exemplifies a successful program that incorporated community voices, leading to tangible benefits for community partners and fostering enduring positive outcomes within the community.

Keywords (separate with commas)

domestic violence, immigrant survivors, religious leaders, community-university collaboration, community-engaged research

Summary

Black people in Western countries are overrepresented within mandatory mental health services and underrepresented in voluntary services. This discrepancy between psychological distress and service seeking behavior raises concerns about the potential impact of racial stereotypes and ethnocentric practices contributing to discriminatory interventions within social services.\ The objective of this research is to provide a better understanding of how social representations of mental illness influence help-seeking behavior and treatment perspectives within the Black community, to center Black experiences, and consequently help develop services that are more appropriate to the specific needs of Afro-descendants.\ This study is based on eight adult participants, living in Montreal, of Afro-Caribbean descent, with a mental illness and a treatment plan. The narrative approach allows for participants\ to contextualize their illness in their own words; a space too often denied to Black communities, especially when it does not comply with the dominant narrative.Findings show that the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and migration influences the experience of psychological distress within the Afro-Caribbean community, as they fear racial discrimination within a predominantly white social service setting. Furthermore, the social representations of mental health combining biomedical, traditional, and spiritual perspectives influences help-seeking behaviors. Discrepancies between a Western model of psychological distress, focused solely on a biomedical perspective of treatment and an Afro-Caribbean perspective that takes a holistic approach are highlighter; this aligns with research on Black mental health in the US and the UK. \ Finally, the Eurocentric lens that surrounds the normative framework of service offerings, including diagnostic and treatment guidelines, only continues to maintain inequity in access to services. These findings speak to the transnational experiences of racism in Black communities, and its impact on mental health services and possibility for recovery, making it imperative to reconsider mental health service delivery in Black communities on a global scale.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Afro-Caribbean, racism, mental health services, help-seeking behavior\ 

Summary

As part of an ongoing larger university-community partnership, we applied methods of interactive theatre to inform the development of socioculturally responsive domestic violence prevention programs. This study examines the gender beliefs and norms expressed by local community members.At an event in a local South Asian community in midwestern USA, trained peer educators performed a skit in which the husband makes a gesture to physically strike his wife. The same skit was performed again applying the methods of Forum Theatre. The audience were then invited to intervene in the scene as bystanders, such as friends or family, which was videorecorded. Using a ground theory approach, supplemented by visual analysis techniques, we conducted inductive coding to analyze community members’ responses to an enacted theatrical performance.Community members’ actions reflected the complexity of varying norms and beliefs about gender roles and relations. Although many confronted the husband, most of them (inadvertently or not) reinforced the centrality of women as caregivers of children in the family. Most community members chose to intervene by interacting with the couple together, interpreting the enacted scene as a conflict to be resolved between the two parties. On the other hand, some community members’ actions reflected a perception that the conflict was a reflection of a gendered power differential between the husband and wife.\ The complexity of gender norms and values reflected in community members’ actions calls for sociocultural tailoring; future social work research and prevention programs must attend to the rich, within-group variations in community members’ attitudes and beliefs.\ Methodologically, this study also points out the effectiveness of using interactive theatre to examine embodied knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes shaped by sociocultural and structural arrangements in their particular community.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Community-based participatory action research, Arts-based approach, Gender-based violence, Qualitative analysis, grounded Theory, Sociocultually responsive research and practice