Tools for research with these groups
Cultural and religous concepts of mental illness, diverse languages and power imbalances can challenge the validity of traditional models of research and research ethics.
The links below can assist researchers to think about alternative research models, and additional ethical considerations when working with refugee or Asian and migrant communities.
Training resources – research with refugee communities
(Centre for Refugee Research, University of New South Wales)
The PowerPoint presentations on this page present possible methods for undertaking reciprocal research and community consultation with refugee communities. The storyboard PowerPoint may be particularly interesting.
Becoming more effective: an introduction to monitoring and evaluation for refugee community organisations.
(Shehnaaz Latif, UK Charities Evaluation Services, 2008)
The research is intended for refugee community organisations who have little or no experience of monitoring and evaluation. The document should be read in combination with advice around ethical considerations when working with these communities, such as the Standards for Engagement Guidelines below.
Standards for Engagement Guidelines for Central and Local Government, and NGOs Working with Refugee Background Communities
(ChangeMakers Refugee Forum, 2008)
This is designed as a practical guide to assist government and NGOs to work together on issues that affect refugee communities. It contains principles and standards for successful engagement as well as indicators for measuring these.
Issues and options paper; The Use of the Term 'Asian' in New Zealand and implications for research, policy development and community engagement (PDF, 367KB)
(Workshop Organising Team, 2005)
This report discusses some of the pros and cons of using the term 'Asian' to describe a diverse range of ethnic communities. It is accessed from New Zealand's Asian Health website.
Evaluating Mental Health Services for People from Non-English Speaking Backgrounds.
(Long, Pirkis, Mihalopolous, Naccerella, Summers & Dunt, 1999)
A 1999 Australian evaluation considering the barriers people from non-English backgrounds face when accessing mental health services. It includes examples of methods to evaluate mental health services for these groups, including worksheets to support evaluation which may be useful for New Zealand services.
Journal of Refugee Studies
(Volume 20, 2007)
This journal volume features a number of pay-to-view articles about research methodology when working with refugee communities. This includes the article Beyond do no harm: The challenge of conducting ethical relationships in refugee research by MacKenzie, McDowell and Pittaway.
Reciprocal Research and Community Consultation
(Centre for Refugee Research, University of New South Wales)
This page discusses the participatory action research model used by the Refugee Research Centre at the University of New South Wales when working with refugee communities.
Checklists for translations
(Multicultural Mental Health Australia, 2007)
This checklist for developing translated information is based on lessons from the No more 'mualagh' project to develop and evaluate mental health resources for Afghan communities in rural Australia.
Visit the Research and Evaluation page on the Tools for Learning section of the Knowledge Exchange for non population-specific tools to assist research and evaluation projects. If you know of other important documents, please contact Jenny Long.
Page last updated: 27 November 2009