Utilizing Trauma Informed Care Principles to Enhance Care for Refugee and Migrant Populations

The National Collaborative on Trauma-Informed Health Care, Education and Research (TIHCER) presents:

Utilizing Trauma Informed Care Principles to Enhance Care for Refugee and Migrant Populations

Migrants at the U.S.-Mexican border suffer from some of the most insidious health crises imaginable. This year alone, hundreds have died or been seriously injured from heat-related injuries, wall-falls, drownings, and neglect. Thousands suffer mental health crises because of their experiences; working at the Juarez/El Paso border to provide healthcare to migrants, we recognized multiple challenges in meeting these health needs. Trauma-informed care (TIC) recognizes the impact of adverse experiences and social determinants of health on physical and mental wellbeing and offers pathways to provide more effective healthcare encounters for vulnerable populations. Medical professionals frequently struggle to provide adequate treatment to a population whose pathologies are often a result of systemic failures. An educational intervention, developed with help of a national TIC expert, was delivered to groups of healthcare workers at the border. Follow-up surveys demonstrated positive changes for participants in knowledge, attitudes, and practices following the intervention.

Our session recreates the educational intervention and begins with an overview of refugee and migrant health challenges and an introduction to TIC principles. Participants will then use a novel online first-person decision-making tool developed from migrant stories shared at the border to simulate aspects of the migrant journey. The workshop will conclude with a debrief discussion.

Medical education has a paucity of curriculum exploring patient pathologies of sociopolitical origin. Through an introduction to TIC and use of a novel simulation tool, this workshop seeks to offer realistic insights to the migrant experience and equip healthcare professionals with the tools to guide patients along meaningful paths of healing. Attendees will be better equipped to recognize myths regarding origins of displaced peoples, evaluate barriers to healthcare, and reflect on how healthcare systems can impact trauma faced by refugee and migrant communities.

Medha Palnati is a second-year medical student at Albany Medical College in Albany, NY. The child of immigrants, she has a passion for assisting the Refugee and Migrant population. Over the past six years, she has served the refugee and migrant community in several capacities as a peer mentor, ENL teacher, patient advocate, and homeless shelter volunteer. With the gift of the Gold Student Summer Fellowship, she was able to continue her work in educating medical students and physicians on the Trauma Informed Care approach to Refugee and Migrant Healthcare at the El Paso/Juarez border. Today, she brings what she has learned from accompanying migrants and refugees along their journeys to you in the form of an interactive educational workshop.

Emily Tovar is a second-year medical student at Albany Medical College in Albany, NY. She is passionate about contributing to environments that emphasize service and the importance of improving the holistic health and well-being of children and adolescents. From a young age, Emily has always known that she hoped to work with at-risk children, having served as a caretaker for children with a variety of psychopathologies.  During her service year with AmeriCorps, she discovered a body of work within psychiatry that focused on the impact that Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) can have on lifelong health and socioeconomic outcomes. This led to this past summer, when Emily was the recipient of the AACAP’s Summer Medical Student Fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, supported by the Break the Cycle Initiative of AACAP’s Campaign for America’s Kids, which is partially funded by the Greater Worchester Community Foundation. This fellowship enabled her to explore the utility of prevention interventions for young children at high risk for psychopathology, and their caregivers, with the Tracking Health, Relationships, Identity, enVironment, and Equity (THRIVE) study when in collaboration with pediatric practices.

Ashley Martinez is a second-year, first-generation medical student at Albany Medical College. As a proud Latina from a low-income background, Ashley's passion for advocacy, mentorship, and health equity stems from health disparities and barriers faced by her community. Since starting her journey to becoming a physician, she has used her background to bridge cultural gaps between medical staff and Spanish speaking patients, and works closely with the Latinx community in the Capital District as President of the Latinx Medical Student Association chapter at AMC. Today, she joins her colleagues in facilitating an interactive educational workshop around utilizing Trauma Informed Care principles to enhance healthcare delivery for migrant and refugee populations.

Aliyah Audil is a second-year medical student at Albany Medical College. Her love for medicine stems from the opportunity it provides to connect with people on an intimate level. Through her work in West/South Side Chicago, Jamaica Plains Boston, and South End Albany, Aliyah has had the privilege of working with and hearing the stories of some of our most vulnerable populations, including refugees, those previously incarcerated, and those who are unhoused and uninsured. As such, Aliyah is passionate about advocating for and elevating the voices of those otherwise overlooked. Her interests lie in social medicine and in the intersection of policy and medicine. Healthcare is a right, not a privilege, and she is beyond excited to share with and learn from her colleagues who are working to achieve this same goal.

Mentors: Megan Gerber, MD, MPH and Katherine Wagner, MD