When
Friday, September 22, 2017 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM EST; Registration from 8:30am to 9:00am.Add to Calendar
Where
Freedom House Recovery Center, Cafeteria
102 New Stateside Drive
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
Parking Details: Please park on the street (New Stateside Dr.), alongside the building. There’s parking on both sides of the street, from the Freedom House driveway down to the end of the street that goes into the neighborhood.
Driving Directions
Contact
Shelley Danser, Pro Bono Counseling Network CoordinatorFreedom House Recovery Center
919-942-2803, x 247
shelley.d@fhrecovery.org
Providing Culturally Sensitive Care to Muslim Clients
The purpose of this workshop is to support clinicians in providing culturally competent mental health care to Muslim clients. Dr. Farha Abbasi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan State University and core faculty member of the Muslim Studies Program will share her wealth of knowledge about both the American Muslim identity/toxic stress experienced and how to better provide mental health care to this population. The following issues will be discussed:
Muslims are currently the most vulnerable population in the world. Out of 40 major conflicts in the world, most are either in Muslim majority countries or impacting Muslims in civil war. Recent wars have left many displaced, destroyed and distressed. Muslims constitute approximately 1% of the U.S. population. Almost half are American born and the other half are immigrant populations. The majority are non-Arabs and black Muslims. Roughly two-thirds of U.S. Muslims say religion is very important in their lives.
The recent increase in Anti-Muslim rhetoric and a sharp decline in a favorable view of Islam has left the Muslim population vulnerable to acts of discrimination. This identity based bias is impacting their mental health and growth negatively. Exposure to persistent stress can lead to prolonged activation of the stress response systems. This can disrupt the development of brain architecture and other organ systems - increasing the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment. This leads to health problems, like heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, depression and substance abuse.
Muslim youth are also facing discrimination and ethnic intimidation. They are being bullied and facing acts of aggression. One in four Muslim students report that they often or always experience stress at school and three in four students describe having been “really stressed out” at some time in the past twelve months. The sense of isolation, discrimination and alienation can impact self-esteem, long term relationships and careers. Repetitive insults and humiliation can lead to an increase in suicidal and homicidal ideation.
Muslim culture deems mental illness as a weakness of the soul; keeping silent in the face of suffering is the norm and to persevere is pious. Stigma and silence can become the biggest barriers to accessing care.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this workshop, participants should be able to:
--Better understand American Muslim identity
--Identify the toxic stress in the Muslim community
--Understand how using faith based mental health care can augment resiliency in American Muslim clients
--Identify how Islamophobia is impacting the rise of different mental health disorders among Muslim clients
--Understand why Muslim clients are reluctant to access care
--Identify how cultural and religious beliefs affect disease models - like the beliefs that mental illness is an evil eye, a possession by jinn, a spiritual weakness.
Three contact hours will be available for this training. Free to all current Pro Bono Counseling Network Volunteer Therapists or other therapists who practice in Durham, Orange, Person or Chatham counties and would like to become a Pro Bono Counseling Network Therapist. For more information on joining and becoming a volunteer therapist, contact Shelley Danser, the program coordinator: Shelley.D@fhrecovery.org.
Farha Abbasi, M.D.
Dr. Abbasi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Michigan State University and core faculty member of the Muslim Studies Program. She is from Pakistan and settled in the United States in the year 2000 with her husband and three daughters. In January of 2009, Dr. Abbasi was awarded the American Psychiatric Association SAMSHA Minority Fellowship. She used the grant money to create awareness about cultural competency, to redefine it as not just tolerance for others but rather acceptance. Her areas of interest are cultural psychiatry and teaching medical students how to provide culturally appropriate care to Muslim patients. She works directly with the Muslim American community to encourage integration rather than isolation from main stream society. In addition to her efforts to build bridges between cultures, Dr. Abbasi’s work as a psychiatrist has led her to address the barriers that stigmatize and silence mental health.
She is the founding director of the Muslim Mental Health Conference, which is in its tenth year. In 2018 the conference will be held at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington DC. In addition, she will be launching a Global Muslim Mental Health Conference in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. She is managing editor of the Journal of Muslim Mental Health, which is hosted by Michigan State University.
Dr. Abbasi has received numerous awards for her service to the community and promoting mental health. She received the Pioneer Award from the Michigan All Pakistan Physicians of North America and the Leadership award from the Pakistan Women Association of Michigan. She has been awarded the Excellence in Diversity Award by the President of Michigan State University and the Town Hero Award by Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. She recently received the Diversity Award from American Psychiatric Foundation for promoting minority health.
She works relentlessly and tirelessly towards one goal: learning to coexist and go beyond our differences to reach the common point of peace and prosperity.
Freedom House Recovery Center's Pro Bono Counseling Network (PBCN)
Are you interested in improving access to mental health care for families and individuals in our community who have few other resources? It may sound like a challenge but it’s actually quite simple . . . by joining a network of clinicians working together to make our system of mental health care more equitable, your efforts can have a big impact. The goal of this project is to recruit mental health professionals that work in Durham, Orange, Person and Chatham counties in NC to join a network of clinicians to provide counseling to one client per year who is motivated to receive mental health counseling (not in crisis or SPMI) but cannot afford treatment due to being uninsured (not eligible for Medicaid) or underinsured (high deductible/unaffordable copay) for 8 free sessions. You may have already been doing some pro bono work for years and now we are simply asking you to join a network of clinicians who are committed to making a difference in our community together. Your volunteer efforts with the Pro Bono Counseling Network will be documented and data related to both the need and outcomes will be captured. This data will be used to influence public policy and community resources. Please contact Shelley Danser if you are interested in learning more about the program: Shelley.D@fhrecovery.org. The PBCN Education Series offers 6 trainings per year on various clinical topics that are FREE to PBCN volunteer therapists.