Addressing mental Health needs in forced migration: Challenges and new developments 2024: Resources

Welcome to the Conference 2024

We look forward to welcoming you to London

View the latest programme

The plenary sessions will take place in the main room, 1.7, 1st floor

Catering will take place in 1.6, 1st floor

 

Ana Asatiani is a campaigner, researcher, and advocate for the rights of refugees and people seeking asylum. She is a refugee, and her lived experience is one of her main motivations for campaigning and advocating in these areas. She focuses on the meaningful involvement of people with lived experience in campaigns and advocacy, co-production, organisational strategy, grassroots/community-level organising, campaigning, and movement building. 

Ana is a co-partner of A&M Consultancy, which is a partnership of two consultants with lived experience of the UK asylum system. 

Ana is a member of the Royal College of Psychiatry Working Group on Force Migration and Refugees. 


Dr Janine Bonnet is a GP by training. I currently work as head of the Medico-legal reports service at Freedom from Torture, with oversight of a team of over 70 doctors, lawyers and administrators. I have over ten years experience documenting torture in an expert witness context and providing training on torture documentation to NHS and other organisations. 

Dr Lucia Chaplin is a Higher Specialty Trainee in General Adult Psychiatry at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. Both she and Dr Crowley are members of the RCPsych Mental Health and Forced Migration Group, and over the past year, have taken a lead in writing the College Report on recent UK immigration legislation.  

Dr Grace Crowley is an ST4 general adult psychiatry trainee working in South London and an academic at King's College London. She is also a member of the RCPsych Working Group for Mental Health and Forced Migration. 

Dr Rukyya Hassan is Consultant General Adult Psychiatrist working in the North West. She has an interest in the mental health of minoritised and marginalised groups generally, and has experience of working with refugees and people seeking asylum in a range of primary and secondary care and custodial settings. She has been a medico-legal report writer for Freedom From Torture and TortureID for several years, and is a member of the RCPsych Working Group for Mental Health and Forced Migration. 

Dr Samah Jabr is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, Chair of the Mental Health Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Associate Clinical Professor at George Washington University. 

Hanna Kienzler is Professor of Global Health in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine and Co-Director of the ESRC Centre for Society and Mental Health at King’s College London. She investigates how systemic violence, ethnic conflict, and complex emergencies intersect with health and mental health outcomes in the occupied Palestinian territory, Kosovo, and, among refugees, in the UK. She conducts research on the mental health impacts of war and trauma on survivors; on what it means for persons with severe mental illness to live and participate in their respective communities; and on humanitarian and mental health interventions in fragile states. She is also co-founder of the Refugee Mental Health & Place network. 

Dr Sarah Majid is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and Manager of Tavistock Immigration Legal Service.

Mishka Paillay is a consultant at A&M Consultancy and a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Working Group for Mental Health and Forced Migration. He has a background of campaigns and advocacy on the rights of refugees and people seeking asylum. 

Dr Ali Siddiqi is a GP and Lead Doctor in London at Freedom From Torture's Medico-Legal Report Service. He works clinically across London and ha worked internationally in Greece, Zambia and more recently Libya. He has oversight of Freedom from Tortures Health Assessment service and also works as part of the Brent Health Matters team to reduce health inequalities in the borough. 


Plenary 1

Navigating the Mental Health Act for patients with Immigration Issues : What do psychiatrists need to consider? 
Dr Rukyya Hassan, Freedom From Torture, RCPsych Working Group for Mental Health and Forced Migration 

 

Providing psychiatric care to asylum seekers with uncertain or unresolved immigration status and/or those with ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ can pose a distinct challenge for mental health practitioners within both hospital and community settings. Many of the interactions that psychiatrists have with this patient group will include the use of the Mental Health Act, impacting both assessment and decisions regarding longer-term management, including detention in hospital. This presentation will summarise key factors which are relevant for psychiatrists to consider in relation to the use of the Mental Health Act, from the point of initial referral to discharge from hospital and community follow-up. 

Plenary 2

The documentation of torture within an NHS consultation 
Dr Janine Bonnet & Dr Ali Siddiqi, Freedom from Torture 

About a third of asylum seekers arriving in the UK are thought to have experienced torture. Obtaining clinical documentation of this is invaluable for their asylum claims and for meeting their physical and psychological health needs. Only a small fraction of asylum seekers will be able to access expert witness evidence such as medico-legal reports. It is therefore essential that those working within the NHS are willing and able to document evidence of torture. This presentation aims to increase confidence in doing this. 

 

Plenary 3

An international perspective on human rights and advocacy: working with forcibly displaced Palestinians 
Dr Samah Jabr, Consultant Psychiatrist and Psychotherapist, Chair of the Mental Health Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Associate Clinical Professor at George Washington University 

 

College Report - the Impact of New Immigration Legislation 

Dr Grace Crowley and Dr Lucia Chaplin, RCPsych Working Group for Mental Health and Forced Migration 

Dr Crowley and Dr Chaplin will present on the mental health impacts of recent changes to UK immigration legislation, namely, the Nationality and Borders Act 2022, the Illegal Migration Act 2023 and the Safety of Rwanda Act 2024. 

 

Commission Report on the Integration of Refugees 
Professor Hanna Kienzler, RCPsych Working Group for Mental Health and Forced Migration 

The Commission on the Integration of Refugees has recently published a Report with 16 evidence-based recommendations on how to achieve effective (and cost-effective) refugee integration. The presentation will summarise the process, the evidence and the recommendations. 

 

Plenary 4

Learning from Lived Experience: Contributions to Policy and change  
Mishka Pillay and Ana Asatiani, A & M Consultancy, RCPsych Working Group for Mental Health and Forced Migration 

Importance of lived experience in policy change, levels of involvement and participation. Examples of the meaningful involvement of people with lived experience and next steps. 

 

Speaker presentations will be uploaded here, where speakers have given us permission to share them. 

 

The documentation of torture within an NHS consultation Dr Janine Bonnet & Dr Ali Siddiqi, Freedom from Torture 

 

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This conference is eligible for up to 6 CPD hours, subject to peer group approval.