At QPASTT, we have a long history of working with families from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds to foster healing and belonging and to nurture thriving futures.
A group of practitioners working across our individual, family, youth, group and community programs recently came together to explore and reflect on how family work is offered at QPASTT. Their collaboration has resulted in an article published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy reflecting on the core principles guiding our work with families navigating the profound challenges of displacement, trauma, and resettlement.
Read some key findings in the article below.
Integrated approaches to family work
At QPASTT, our family work combines trauma-informed care with systemic and culturally sensitive approaches.
We support clients through tailored therapeutic approaches, including individual counselling and family therapy, group work and community work.
Community-based work involves practitioners working closely with community members to create opportunities for community-based healing and capacity building, including tailored collective healing processes, conversations about mental health and wellbeing, community development, supporting community-led initiatives, systemic advocacy and connecting communities to services.
This integrative approach ensures that healing is relational, strengths-based, and culturally appropriate.
Collaboration as a pathway to healing
One of our practitioners’ key insights is the importance of connection—both within families and among practitioners. By fostering collaboration between families, communities, and service providers, we aim to create shared understandings that empower families to reclaim agency and build resilience and which seek to dismantle systemic discrimination and other barriers to accessing services often experienced by people from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Moving from moral condemnation to compassionate practice
Trauma frequently disrupts family dynamics and caregiving capacities for families from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds. There is a strong relationship between refugee trauma and the risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder, and parents may face the impacts of their trauma while simultaneously raising and supporting children.
In the settlement country, cultural values, practices and family roles of refugee survivors may be misunderstood or misjudged. A lack of understanding and stigma towards people from non-dominant cultural backgrounds can lead to parenting being viewed through a lens of moral condemnation. This can manifest in judgements that shape interactions with justice, health, educational and family services. Refugee trauma responses in caregivers can be misconstrued as inadequate care and attachment for children, prompting interventions that further increase the trauma experience and disrupt the stability and functioning of the family unit.
QPASTT practitioners ground their work in cultural humility—an open-minded, non-judgmental approach that recognises and respects the complexities of each family’s story. This shift from judgment to acceptance creates the foundation for healing and recovery.
Key practice principles for family healing
Through reflections from practitioners, six guiding principles have emerged as central to QPASTT’s approach to working with families:
Looking ahead
As we continue to reflect on and evolve our practices, QPASTT remains committed to supporting families through trauma recovery with compassion, flexibility, and respect. By valuing each family’s unique journey, we hope to help them heal, belong, and thrive.
Read the full article in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy for more insights into QPASTT’s approach to family healing.
