In 2017, HEAL Founder and Coordinator Jane Griffin presented with colleagues at the Trauma Aware Schooling Conference in Brisbane.
Their presentation was Adolescents of refugee backgrounds: A whole school approach to promoting learning and settlement (page 49)
HEAL provides creative therapy to ease anguish and assist positive settlement outcomes for young refugees who have endured intense hardship, and who now attend Australian schools. They help these young adults to settle, embrace their new identities and create better mental-health outcomes through culturally appropriate, creative psychotherapeutic methods.
In Chapman, Kellehear, Everett, Lane, Robertson, Peters, Goding, Farhall, Trauer, Cassanati (Eds.), 20 years strong – and now a renaissance, Contemporary Themes in Mental Health Services, Sydney Conference Proceedings 2010, pp127-129, The MHS Conference, Sydney, New South Wales
A hand drawn picture hangs high up on a wall of the brightly coloured school demountable. The image is a confronting one: a heart bleeding onto the page.
“It was my heart when I was in Afghanistan when my life so hard and so trobell (sic) and nobody helped me…,” it reads.
Created by a former student of Brisbane’s Milpera State High School the art gives a rare glimpse into the private suffering of some of the community’s most vulnerable children.
This article examines how a Milpera High School encourages non-English speaking immigrant students to explore and express their feelings through music and talking about song lyrics. This research helped in the development of Music Therapy at Milpera.
ABSTRACT
In music therapy literature and popular culture alike, music is often hailed as a universal language. It is appropriate then that music therapy is included within the services offered at a high school catering specifically to non-English-speaking students.
The music therapy program described in this paper encourages students to explore and express their feelings by playing instruments, singing, writing songs, listening to music and talking about song lyrics.
The school is state-run (but federally funded) and provides English language, high school preparation and settlement services to high school aged youth who have recently arrived in Australia from non-English-speaking countries. There are currently 22 nationalities represented amongst the student population, with most students staying no longer than six months before being integrated into mainstream schools with English as a Second Language (ESL) support.
While some of the students’ families are business migrants, some 60% of students have arrived in Australia as refugees. An increasing proportion (currently 41.6%) originated from The Republic of the Sudan in northern Africa.