Psychosocial interventions

Sometimes individuals require interventions that go beyond the prescription of medication or speaking with a psychotherapist. These psychosocial interventions target broader elements in an individual's life. Generally administered through local specialty psychiatric services and community treatment teams, they include family interventions, employment and academic interventions, social skills and life training, and case management (Foussias & Daskalakis, 2011).

Psychosocial interventions focus on helping individuals integrate into society by understanding their needs (e.g., caregiver burden, employment, training, housing, etc.) and helping them access the resources and assistance they need. Overall, psychosocial interventions are effective treatment methods for immigrants and refugees (Nose et al., 2017; Beidel et al., 2014).

Psychosocial interventions can include the following:

Second language (English or French) programs to help facilitate access to services
Social skills training to improve or restore interpersonal and social functioning and communication
Social recreational programs to build social networks
Vocational programs to develop job-related skills
Activity-based groups, such as those focused on music, dance, cooking, tai chi, etc.

Here are three examples of promising psychosocial interventions: befriending, psychoeducation and social support.

Click on the tabs below to learn more about each category

Befriending
Psychoeducation
Social Support

Activity: Sarah's story

This activity presents a scenario involving a client. You will choose a series of questions to ask the client based on the scenario. To start the activity, select the right arrow at the bottom right corner of the page. You may proceed by selecting the arrows or using your left and right arrow keys to view the information you may solicit based on the types of questions you ask. The purpose of this activity is to draw your attention to how we ask certain questions and the kinds of assumptions we make based on the responses we receive. It emphasizes the importance of asking specific, relevant questions during intake or the first meeting with the client in order to obtain more thorough information with respect to migration, pre-migration experiences and post-migration realities. In this way, you can provide help and support that is relevant to the client and that effectively meets the client's needs.