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Mental Health and Wellbeing Toolkit

[Mental health is] the capacity of each and all of us to feel, think, act in ways that enhance our ability to enjoy life and deal with the challenges we face.

Public Health Agency of Canada


It’s important as service providers working with immigrants and refugees to take into account both the resilience and the social determinants that impact mental health, as well as the need to improve service delivery for newcomers. DIVERSEcity, through the Surrey Local Immigration Partnership, has created a Mental Health and Wellbeing Toolkit for settlement, social and health service providers, which aims to mitigate barriers to accessing culturally appropriate mental health care services.

Purpose of the toolkit

The purpose of this toolkit is to improve settlement and mental health outcomes for populations that have been marginalized by providing access to current, relevant and local services, resources and best practices, and train frontline staff on how to effectively use this toolkit.

By providing evidence-based research and highlighting promising practices, this toolkit strives to enhance knowledge, develop skills, and provide resources on the unique strengths and needs of mental health and wellbeing for newcomers. The toolkit covers the following:

  • Context of mental health for newcomers
  • Pathology vs resilience
  • Social determinants
  • Cultural competency, humility and safety
  • Stigma
  • Limitations in accessing services
  • Recommendations and promising practices

This resource seeks to be an area-specific toolkit to provide support to front-line staff in Surrey, South Surrey, Delta, White Rock and Tsawwassen. Download the toolkit under the “Documents” tab.

Lead Project Consultants:

  • Bahar Taheri, Blue Tree Solutions
  • Mona Hassannia, MA, RCC, Nia Counselling

Surrey LIP wishes to gratefully acknowledge the Government of Canada, through Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), who provided financial support for this project.

Mental Health and Wellbeing Toolkit

A mental health and wellbeing toolkit for settlement, social and health service providers, which aims to mitigate barriers to accessing culturally appropriate mental health care services.

Read Here