Working with Immigrant and Refugee Populations
A two-hour intermediate course for licensed clinicians on counseling immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and mixed-status families. Covers the triple trauma paradigm, acculturation and acculturative stress, the DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview, idioms of distress, interpreter-mediated practice, confidentiality in an enforcement climate, culturally adapted trauma treatments, and the boundaries of psychological evaluations for immigration proceedings.
2
CE Hours
4
Modules
18
Quiz Questions
2
Est. Minutes
What you'll learn
- Differentiate the legal and psychological situations of immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, undocumented individuals, DACA recipients, and members of mixed-status families, and explain how each shapes clinical presentation.
- Apply the triple trauma paradigm and Berry's acculturation framework to organize a client's pre-migration, transit, post-migration, and structural stressors into a coherent case conceptualization.
- Administer the core DSM-5-TR Cultural Formulation Interview and interpret cultural concepts of distress, idioms of distress, and somatic presentations without over- or under-pathologizing.
- Conduct an interpreter-mediated session using evidence-based briefing, positioning, first-person, and debriefing practices, and explain why children and family members must not interpret.
- Explain accurately to clients what record and confidentiality protections a counselor can and cannot promise in the context of immigration enforcement, and obtain informed consent accordingly.
- Distinguish the treating-clinician role from the forensic evaluator role in asylum, VAWA, U-visa, and hardship-waiver matters, and identify the training and documentation standards (including the Istanbul Protocol) that govern immigration evaluations.
Who it's for
Licensed mental health professionals (LPCs, LCSWs, LMFTs, NCCs, psychiatric NPs).
Approval & credit
CounselorReady is an NBCC-Approved Continuing Education Provider (ACEP #7760). This course awards 2 NBCC-approved CE hours; a certificate is issued on completion. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. CounselorReady is solely responsible for all aspects of the program.