Resettling Refugees and Safeguarding their Mental Health: Lessons Learned from the Canadian Refugee Resettlement Project

Abstract

The Ryerson University Refugee Resettlement Project (RRP), a decade-long study of 1348 Southeast Asian refugees who came to Canada between 1979 and 1981, is one of the largest, most comprehensive and longest-lived investigations of refugee resettlement ever carried out. Knowledge gleaned from the RRP about research methodology, about the resettlement experience, about the social costs of resettling refugees, about factors that promote or hinder integration, about risk and protective factors for refugee mental health, and about the refugees’ consumption of mental health and social services is summarized in the form of 18 “Lessons.” The lessons are offered in order to encourage and stimulate further research, as well to suggest policy and practice innovations that could help make resettlement easier, less costly, more effective, and more humane.