A Systemic Framework for Culturally Attuned and Socially Empowering Practices with Immigrants and Refugees

A Systemic Framework for Culturally Attuned and Socially Empowering Practices with Immigrants and Refugees

As the number of immigrants and refugees is increasing worldwide, practitioners search for new tools and resources to respond to this population of clients. This presentation addresses this urgent need by describing and illustrating the latest conceptual and practice developments of a relational multidimensional framework that offers non-stereotyped, strength based sociocultural road maps to work systematically with many cultural groups. Risks and resiliencies inherent in separations and reunifications between family members will be focused on in the applied form of “transnational therapies”. The framework presented integrates “cultural humility” and reflexivity about power differentials for practitioners since they must become aware of the role their theoretical sociocultural assumptions and personal preferences play in the therapeutic encounter.

Dr. Celia J. Falicov

Celia Jaes Falicov, Ph.D. is an internationally re-known family therapy author, teacher, and clinician. She is Clinical Professor and Founding Director of Mental Health at the Student Run Free Clinics providing services to immigrants in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. She is Past President of the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA). Dr Falicov has pioneered writings on migration, culture and context in family therapy practice and training, receiving many professional awards for this work. Her books include Family Transitions: Continuity and Change over the Life Cycle; Cultural Perspectives in Family Therapy; Latino Families in Therapy and the co-authored Multiculturalism and Diversity in Clinical Supervision.