Community-led conversations give EMBARC clients a safe space to share

Left-right: EMBARC Crisis & Advocacy program manager Alex Nassif, Crisis & Advocacy program coordinator Dim Muan Kim, and licensed social worker Jennifer Haider lead the mental health focus group at EMBARC’s Access Center.

A new focus group led by EMBARC Crisis and Advocacy is exploring how community-led discussions can open access to mental healthcare information among refugees and immigrants in central Iowa.

Crisis and Advocacy Program Coordinator Dim Muan Kim wanted to give her clients a safe space to build relationships with each other while learning about mental health. With the help of long-time EMBARC partner and licensed social worker Jennifer Haidar, the two came up with a curriculum that will give clients the tools they need to understand their trauma and learn how to cope with it. 

The six-participant focus group is interpreted in Burmese by Muan Kim. Crisis and Advocacy clients are often survivors of physical and/or emotional domestic violence, homelessness or victims of a crime like identity theft. After experiencing trauma, clients commonly present with symptoms of depression and anxiety. Even with proper mental health education, it can be difficult to face these feelings alone. 

According to Muan Kim, most of the Crisis and Advocacy clients at EMBARC don’t want to seek counseling or therapy because of the language barrier and stigma surrounding mental health. In Burma, people who sought counseling were shamed into thinking something was wrong with them, Muan Kim said. 

Instead, EMBARC is using an education-first model to ease that stigma, Muan Kim said. 

Through this six-week focus group, clients learn basic definitions of mental health; what trauma, depression and anxiety look like; how to form healthy relationships and attachments; and how to use new coping skills every week that coincide with each topic. 

“The main thing we want to give them is the coping skills, how to curb their trauma or [care for] their mental health. So before that, they need to know, what is mental health?,” Muan Kim said.

Rather than teaching a class, Muan Kim views the group as a sharing experience between all participants. She asks questions to prompt the conversation, encouraging the clients to answer and discuss freely. At the end of each session, everyone learns a new coping activity together like breathing exercises and self-care habits. 

“I want them to continue using the coping methods that we gave them so it might help relieve their stress,” Muan Kim said.

Haidar believes that the more support groups can be community-led, the better. Having a shared experience, similar background, an understanding of the same culture all make the learning more accessible to the community. 

Haidar hopes that through this focus group, clients will learn that their emotions are a normal response to trauma, and what the next steps forward are for taking care of themselves. 

“We all have things that are going to adversely affect us,” Haidar said. “We're all going to have challenges and if we know how to go through those in as healthy a way as possible, we're all the better for it.”