Grant: Operating Grant: SickKids-CIHR-IHDCYH New Investigator Grants

RATIONALE: Approximately 1.3 million new immigrants settled in Canada from 2016 to 2021 including over 300,000 refugees. Refugee children and families are at high risk of mental health difficulties due to heightened exposure to trauma and adversity throughout their migration journey and structural and systemic barriers to accessing mental health support. OBJECTIVES: The proposed project aims to improve the mental health and well-being of refugee children and their caregivers through the co-design and evaluation of a culturally responsive family-based mental health intervention. Specific objectives are to: (1) implement an equity-focused and community-engaged process to co-design a preventative mental health intervention with refugee families and service providers; (2) assess the feasibility of the intervention model and study procedures using a mixed methods randomized feasibility trial. METHODS: The project will build on an existing research-community partnership with Wesley, one of Canada’s largest settlement service providers. We will follow the five steps of human-centred design to co-create the intervention with refugee families and service providers: (1) empathize with user perspectives; (2) define the problem; (3) ideate to generate potential solutions; (4) prototype approaches and tools; and (5) test to inform continuous improvements. A mixed methods randomized feasibility trial with 60 refugee families and 10 service providers will be conducted to assess the feasibility, acceptability, fidelity, and safety of the intervention and study procedures. IMPACT: The project responds directly to calls from refugees, service providers, and policy makers to reimagine mental health care for refugee children and families. Study findings will inform preparations for a future definitive trial to test intervention impacts on refugee child and caregiver mental health. Evidence of an effective and scalable mental health intervention will be transformative in closing equity gaps and supporting refugee children and families to thrive in their new lives in Canada.