Envisioning home: The philadelphia refugee mental health photovoice project as a story of effective relationship building

Abstract

As refugee populations are displaced from their countries of origin, they experience population-specific physical, psychological, and social challenges that have a profound impact on mental health. This chapter describes a community engagement program that used photovoice methodology to engage and empower refugee families around the issue of mental health during resettlement. Through the eyes of the program’s key collaborators, you will learn how photographs and accompanying narratives were used to develop thriving partnerships and arts-based mental health programming focused on themes of resilience, cultural inheritance, community-building, and environmental transformation. The research was conducted by members of the Philadelphia Refugee Mental Health Collaborative, a group of organizations working to promote refugee community engagement and build an effective, wellness-based model for refugee mental health in the city of Philadelphia.