Refugee Care at University of Essex at Colchester

This unique course brings together people from diverse walks of life and parts of the globe to explore how countries can care for refugees more effectively. Through lively seminar discussion the University of Essex unpacks refugee experiences as multi-dimensional and complex, and explores psychosocial perspectives and different types of intervention and activism. They discuss how people may become more therapeutic in their work with refugees, beyond merely offering psychotherapy.
Through the course, students gain skills in challenging negative and limiting stereotypes of asylum seekers and refugees as traumatized, passive recipients of help. Students also gain new insight into effective humanitarian work with refugees and have a special opportunity to visit an Asylum Tribunal and learn from judges about how the UK asylum system operates. This programme is closely associated with Centre for Trauma Asylum and Refugees.

Using an innovative twin-site programme, the course staff are made up from the multidisciplinary practitioner expertise of the Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies Department and the therapeutic provision of the Tavistock and Portman Clinic. Two modules are delivered on Monday afternoons and evenings at the Tavistock Clinic in London and four modules are delivered on Tuesdays at the University of Essex (Colchester campus).

Students will also have guest speakers who are activists, academics and world experts in the field. They will learn Essex's unique, innovative and proven approach enabling students to work directly with refugees, combining theory and practice. Essex offers valuable opportunities to gain first-hand experience in this field through supportive work placements in London, Colchester and beyond.

Students often come with a wealth of voluntary and professional experience in fields such as education, psychology, therapy, medicine, nursing, social work, human rights, law, politics, philosophy, art, literature and media studies. Essex also welcomes people coming to the field of Refugee Care anew, with an interest in working directly with refugees, asylum seekers or other involuntarily dislocated groups of people, or conducting conceptual or empirical research in this area. Students may successfully combine study in this course with part-time work with charity sector organizations.

Topics include: psychosocial meanings of home and the implications of loss of home; systemic and dynamic complexities of the refugee condition; refugee needs and therapeutic responses to them; the therapeutic dimension of refugee care; theory and scope of the psycho-social approach to refugee care; psychodynamic and systemic approaches to refugee care.

The field of refugee work is not only topical but is expanding and developing rapidly, creating new employment initiatives and opportunities. This course is unique in equipping students to work directly in this field.

Accordingly, Essex's graduates make an impact by applying the innovative approach that the course offers in a variety of contexts and disciplines. Many of the graduates go on to play a leading role in many spheres e.g. education, social and community work, human rights, emergency and humanitarian aid, national, international and non-governmental organizations.