An Examination of Intergenerational Conflict in Families from Refugee Backgrounds and Parent’s Perception of Family Counselling.

QPASTT, Brisbane, Australia
An examination of intergenerational conflict in families from refugee backgrounds and parent’s perception of family counselling.
Due to the compounded impacts of complex war trauma, acculturation stress, intergenerational conflict, and significant grief and loss families from refugee backgrounds require specific and considered levels of intervention. At QPASTT, one intervention on offer for families to help navigate these difficulties is family counselling. For many parents from refugee background presenting at QPASTT, this is an unfamiliar intervention that can be associated with significant stigma.
This presentation will describe what is family counselling in the context of families affected by war trauma and why is it different from individual counselling, the common themes or issues that are addressed in family counselling, as well as the strategies used to promote their meaningful understanding of the importance of family counselling process to themselves, their families and their cultural communities. It will also discuss how these families worked in a family counselling context to strengthen their parent – child relationships and increased their confidence in managing settlement challenges.
This models also includes an acknowledgement of client’s own culturally specific parenting practices and adaptation of these practices to expectation in Australia, as well as psychoeducation about the impacts of trauma and family therapy approaches. Key messages will focus on how parents came to an understanding of the importance of trauma informed intervention/counselling to their families to reduce intergenerational conflict, ensure cultural relevance and to promote working in partnership with communities.
Case examples and client quotes will be included to demonstrate the QPASTT model of family counselling. Participants will also learn about the family counselling model of service at QPASTT, including practice principals which can be adapted by other services to increase participation and engagement in individual counselling and in group settings.