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ATTENDANCE POLICY

Learners who complete this 2-hour course will receive a certificate of completion from the Academy.

 

DESCRIPTION

​​This course is designed for NYC non-profit care providers who witness and can help address the emotional, psychological, and systemic challenges experienced by individuals and families navigating migration.
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​Explore the impacts of pre-migration adversity, displacement, acculturation stress, family separation, and ongoing legal uncertainty. Participants learn how trauma may manifest across developmental stages and cultural contexts, and how to approach assessment and intervention with curiosity, sensitivity, and respect for lived experience.
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​A central focus of this course is the role of providers in witnessing, holding, safely discharging, and transforming distress. These are essential skills for supporting clients who carry complex trauma while also protecting the provider’s own wellbeing. Through a trauma-informed and culturally grounded lens, the course emphasizes relational safety, attuned communication, and strategies that foster empowerment, stabilization, and healing. ​

COURSE OBJECTIVES

Participants will:

• Identify at least three common indicators of immigration-related trauma across developmental stages and cultural contexts, including how distress may be expressed somatically, emotionally, and behaviorally.
• Describe trauma-informed and culturally responsive strategies for assessing and supporting individuals and families impacted by migration-related stressors, with particular attention to how providers can effectively witness and hold distress in ways that promote safety and dignity.
• Explain how systemic, cultural, and legal factors shape the experiences of immigrant clients and apply this understanding to enhance engagement, advocacy, and mental health care.
• Demonstrate approaches for safely discharging distress—including grounding, co-regulation, and containment strategies—to support both client stabilization and provider sustainability in high-intensity emotional work. ​

WHAT TO EXPECT

​​This course includes case examples, reflective practice, and guided discussion to strengthen participants’ capacity for supporting immigrant clients with compassion, presence, and clinical effectiveness.​ During the course, participants can expect to be on camera, speak out loud, use the chat, and work together in pairs. Please note that there may be participants with personal and direct experience with migration and immigration. Self-disclosure is neither required nor expected.

Questions framing the guided discussion may include:

• In what ways do pre‑migration adversity, displacement, or legal uncertainty show up in the emotional or behavioral expressions of the clients you serve?
• How do institutional, systemic, cultural, or legal barriers shape your relationship with immigrant clients?
• What does it look like in your work to “witness and hold” the client’s distress without internalizing it?
• What care strategies have felt grounding or supportive for you and for your clients?

ELIGIBILITY

Academy courses are open to non-profit care providers who deliver social services or behavioral health care in New York City.

This includes, but is not limited to, staff of: community-based organizations, government agencies, and public hospitals, along with members of mutual aid groups, community gardens, NYCHA resident committees, and more.

​​This course is open to any NYC non-profit care provider who serves immigrants and refugees, including but not limited to non-profit providers of legal services, social services, health, and mental health care. ​