Healthcare & Medicaid Expansion
Mental Health
Mental Health Directory for Missouri: For a list of mental health resources across the state, check out this directory created by USCRI.
Emotional Health and Wellness: Available in 10 languages, this fact sheet from Settle In explains how emotions impact physical health, relationships, memory, and decision-making. The guide offers tips for stress management, including mindfulness, finding balance, and connecting with others.
What Is the Impact of Peer Support Groups on Refugees’ Mental Health: Among other findings, this Switchboard evidence summary confirms that multiple sources of strong evidence indicate that peer support groups can improve newcomer mental health symptoms.
What Works To Improve Maternal Mental Health Outcomes For Refugees?: This evidence summary summarizes the state of available evidence on the impacts of interventions targeting the reduction of adverse mental health symptoms in expectant or new mothers. This summary includes interventions that are either directly impacting the mothers or aiming to increase rates of screening by medical providers.
Sample Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Onboarding Guide: This guide is a framework for onboarding new MHPSS service providers, whether they are experienced mental health clinicians new to serving refugee populations or novice caseworkers setting out to support newcomers through psychosocial services in resettlement. This guide can be customized to meet new staff members’ specific needs and includes organization-specific training.
Supporting Immigrant and Refugee Families through Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Services: Infant and early childhood mental health (IECMH) services can play an important part in supporting young children’s well-being and development. This issue brief highlights the importance of IECMH services for immigrant and refugee families as well as gaps in IECMH promotion, prevention, screening, and treatment that affect these families.
Building Capacity to Support the Mental Health of Immigrants and Refugees: A Toolkit for Settlement, Social, and Health Service Providers: This toolkit from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health was designed to provide a snapshot of essential information, tools, resources, and offers examples of promising practices that can be integrated into the daily work of service providers.
Policy Guide: Improving Access to Mental Healthcare for Refugees and Other Displaced People in the United States: This guide provides an overview of the existing mental healthcare infrastructure, and highlights challenges and opportunities for policy advancement and advocacy at the local, state, and federal levels.
Podcast: A Discussion on Refugee Mental Health: This episode features Megan Rafferty, Switchboard's training officer, focusing on mental health and wellness, and Selina Mate, Switchboard's digital content manager with a background in case management. They discuss ways to support newcomers with a trauma-informed lens.
Archived Webinar: A Trauma-Informed Understanding of Mental Health & Psychosocial Support: This webinar covers key concepts related to Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) and describes how unique traumas impact the health and wellbeing of newcomers during forced migration and resettlement.
Brain Boost: Brain boost offers mental health providers free educational resources and products to expand their knowledge and skills in culturally responsive treatments and best practices with Hispanic and Latinx clients. New resources are available the last Tuesday of each month.
Supporting Mental Health of Immigrant Women: Women migrants are especially vulnerable to migration-related stressors and mental health distress often due to exposure to traumatic experiences before, during, and after migration. Once settled in this country, immigration policies, loss of social networks, discrimination, financial pressures, dangerous working conditions, and low socioeconomic status can further increase stress and unhealthy coping strategies.
Facilitating Discussions About Mental Health with Afghan Newcomer Communities: This guide, created by Switchboard in partnership with Boston College, is intended to define mental health and trauma while explaining the common mental health struggles that resettled Afghans may face. Service providers and readers will learn the barriers to accessing mental health services Afghan newcomers may encounter.
Afghan Wellness Helpline Flyer: The Wellness Helpline for Afghans offers counseling services to newcomers who are experiencing sadness, anger, anxiety, fear, depression, difficulty sleeping and or other distress.
Faith-based Healing Among Afghan Muslims: Faith can help many religious people cope with stress, maintain mental health, and achieve personal goals. For Afghan Muslim newcomers to the United States, faith and healing are often closely linked. This guide will give you a brief introduction to Islam to help you understand how faith-based practices can help Muslim clients cope with trauma and promote healing.
Mental Health & Stress: This collection is aimed at equipping Afghan newcomers with the skills to manage the stress that comes with migration to a new country and culture. By focusing on stress management, the collection addresses Afghans’ mental health needs in a culturally relevant way.
Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Service Mapping: Alongside the National Resource Center for Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants (NRC-RIM), CARRE has created a guide in mapping Mental Health and Psychosocial Supports (MHPSS) available to forcibly displaced families in the U.S. with the goal and aim of improving access to essential mental health services.
IRC Training Course: Suicide Prevention in Resettlement, Asylum and Integration Settings: This module focuses on the foundational skills of suicide prevention and will cover what steps all direct service staff can take to prevent suicide, and how to use suicide prevention practices with your clients.
Healthcare
Shaping the Future of Refugee Health Care: Five Key Insights from the 2024 North American Refugee Health Conference (NARHC): The NARHC highlighted the importance of including voices with lived refugee experiences, recognized refugee health as a global continuum, and more. This Switchboard blog post recaps the conference and highlights key takeaways.
Tracking Migration and Health Inequities: This article discusses the importance of ensuring access to health services for migrant communities and strengthening countries' capacity to regularly collect, analyze, and report quality data on migration health.
How to Talk to Newcomers About Nutrition: Developed in partnership with Leah’s Pantry, this blog post offers guidance to help you confidently talk about food and nutrition without being an expert. You will learn ways to support healthy habits in the U.S. while honoring newcomers’ traditional diets.
Eight Tips for Service and Health Care Provider Collaboration: The Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers released a new blog offering valuable insights into enhancing collaboration between service providers and health care professionals. The blog provides practical tips for improving coordination, including identifying key contacts at each organization, sharing resources, and scheduling regular meetings to discuss goals and challenges.
Mercy Neighborhood Ministry Resources: Mercy Neighborhood Ministry created this list of resources to help agency workers when referring clients to seek additional help. Resources on this list cover health, food pantries, transportation and more in the St. Louis area.
National Kidney Foundation Language Flyers: The National Kidney Foundation serves Eastern Missouri, Metro East and Arkansas with the goal of addressing kidney health in diverse local communities. In the latest installment of their language flyer initiative, they address what it means to be newly diagnosed with a kidney disease. You can find the flyer translated into the following languages:
Tips for Overcoming Three Common Challenges to Health Care: Transportation, Interpretation, and Competing Demands: This blog post details tips for assisting clients with three specific challenges: transportation, interpretation, and competing demands. Download Switchboard’s information guide Problem-Solving Health Care Access Issues for tips on navigating other common challenges.
Pregnancy Checklist: Hospital And Home Preparation: This resource, created in partnership with the Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers and Switchboard, is for service providers to reference with newcomers who will be giving birth in the United States.
Problem-Solving Health Care Access Issues: Supporting Clients In Overcoming Common Obstacles: This Switchboard guide reviews possible strategies to addressing common health care access issues including transportation, interpretation, competing demands, insurance, and barriers to follow-up care.
What Works To Improve Maternal Mental Health Outcomes For Refugees?: This evidence summary summarizes the state of available evidence on the impacts of interventions targeting the reduction of adverse mental health symptoms in expectant or new mothers. This summary includes interventions that are either directly impacting the mothers or aiming to increase rates of screening by medical providers.
The Right Time, an initiative of Missouri Foundation for Health and is led by Missouri Family Health Council, is improving information about, and access to, quality contraceptive services by reducing costs and improving access. The initiative provides residents of Missouri with access to free and low-cost birth control, trustworthy information on birth control, and is committed to addressing persistent health disparities.
Missouri Family Health Council, Inc. champions access for every individual to culturally sensitive, quality sexual and reproductive health education and services. Correcting misinformation about the legality of birth control, including emergency contraception (EC), is one of MFHC’s primary goals with its newly launched Free EC contraceptive access project which offers free emergency contraception to Missourians. Free EC kits can be picked up at over 40 locations throughout the state or requested by mail on the MFHC website.
Engaging Diverse Audiences: This roadmap provides tools, strategies, recommendations, and fundamentals for working with diverse communities. Health departments, community-based organizations (CBOs), providers, and community health workers can use these resources for internal capacity building and developing outreach materials.
Service and Health Care Provider Collaboration: Promoting Clients’ Health Through Improved Coordination: This guide, created by Switchboard in partnership with the Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers, highlights tips from service and healthcare providers on how service providers can facilitate collaboration with healthcare provider colleagues to support newcomers’ health.
Communications Tool: Strategies for Developing Culturally Driven Public Health Communications: The Public Health Communications Collaborative and HCN (Hispanic Communications Network) co-created this tool to help public health communicators effectively communicate with multicultural audiences. Each section offers strategies and tools to help you create materials that build stronger relationships, increase credibility, and improve health outcomes.
What Resettlement Staff Should Know About Public Health Reportable Conditions: This guide introduces resettlement staff to selected public health reportable conditions that are highly relevant to their work. The content was created by Switchboard in partnership with the Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers.
Vaccines Save Lives is now available on the Settle In website. This resource was created in partnership with The National Resource Center for Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants (NRC-RIM) and includes a fact sheet, video, and podcast.
This resource is also available in the following languages: Arabic, Burmese, Dari, English, Kinyarwanda, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, and Ukrainian.
Supporting Newcomers’ Health: Addressing Respiratory Illnesses: This blog post from the National Resource Center for Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants (NRC-RIM) provides guidance and resources for service providers on influenza (flu), respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and coronavirus disease (COVID-19)—viral illnesses that are more common during colder months and that can cause significant illness.
An Introduction to Refugee Health: This information guide, created in collaboration with the Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers, briefly introduces refugee health to service providers and includes resources that can be shared with medical provider partners new to serving refugee patients.
Women’s Wellness: These videos from the National Resource Center for Refugees, Immigrants, and Migrants (NRC-RIM) cover the women's wellness exam and information for your clients on their rights as patients:
Helping Clients Prepare for Initial Medical Appointments: Switchboard shares ideas about how service providers can help prepare newcomer clients for their initial medical appointments, including what clients need to know and do prior to their first appointment, what they need to bring, what to expect, and more.
Health Needs Assessment (HNA) Toolkit: A health needs assessment helps organizations identify gaps in health services, resources and health outcomes, and use the information to plan and implement programs and services to increase health equity and improve the overall health and well-being of the community. Now, organizations can conduct their own health needs assessments with NRC-RIM's toolkit, created in partnership with the International Rescue Committee.
New Administration for Children and Families Resource Guides: The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) released new resource guides to help communities connect to ACF programs that may be able to assist them. Each guide is geared towards specific communities to help community partners connect their clients with ACF programs. Some of the resource guides are available in Spanish, Arabic, and other languages.
Sexual and Reproductive Health for Afghans: This glossary provides a standardized reference tool of SRH terms, translated from English into Dari and Pashto, that have been culturally validated and reviewed by a group of Afghan subject matter experts.
Staying Safe in the Summer: Water and Extreme Heat: Many newly arriving refugees and humanitarian parolees are about to experience their first summer in the United States. Depending on where they have settled, they may find themselves in an unfamiliar weather environment with new summer activities available to them. These new environments may include exposure to extreme and prolonged heat, different UV indexes, and having the opportunity to play in or near water.
Switchboard Healthcare Provider Directory: Finding healthcare providers who understand the varied health needs of refugee communities, who work with interpreters, and who accept a particular insurance plan (or no insurance) can seem daunting. This blog post introduces a new resource from the Society of Refugee Healthcare Providers that can help.
Assisting Newcomers with Navigating the U.S. Health Care System: An Introduction for Direct Service Providers: This archived webinar training reviews U.S. health care coverage options and health-related benefits, including the initial domestic medical screening available to newcomers.
Practical Considerations for Involving Refugees, Immigrants and Migrants in Creating Public Health Messaging: This archived webinar hosted by NRC-RIM teaches participants about best practices and tips for cultural validation from the newly developed Cultural Validation and Translation Review Toolkit.
Healthcare in the United States, a suite of resources for newcomers created by the Cultural Orientation Resource Exchange (CORE), are available in several languages and now reflect that the eligibility period for Refugee Medical Assistance (RMA) has changed from eight to 12 months. CORE also added a new activity to teach newcomers about different types of medical specialists.
You Know Your Body Best: A Palm Card for Urgent Maternal Warning Signs: This five-by-seven inch palm card provides a list of urgent maternal warning signs and discusses how to talk to your healthcare provider. It explains that if you are pregnant or gave birth within the last year, it’s important to talk to your healthcare provider about anything that doesn’t feel right. Available in 15 languages.
Urgent Maternal Warning Signs: Created by Switchboard, this poster provides information and guidelines for when pregnant people should seek medical care if they experience certain symptoms. Available in 16 languages.
Hellooo America: A three-part mini-series, for and by refugee youth, exploring the often-stigmatized conversations around sexual health and rights in the refugee community.
Healthcare in the United States Resource Suite: This compilation of resources touches on the U.S. healthcare system, hygiene, understanding COVID-19, resettling during the pandemic and vaccines.
Health and Hygiene: On this page, explore a variety of activities, complete lesson plans, and additional resources that address key messages in the Health & Hygiene Objectives & Indicators, and teach refugees basic U.S. healthcare principles, personal hygiene practices, and other health and hygiene norms in the United States.
Coverage to Care (C2C) Enrollment Toolkit: This resource supports community partners, assisters, and others who help consumers enroll in health insurance coverage or change their health plan.
Cover Missouri Coalition’s Find Local Help Map: This Zip Code Locator and Appointment Scheduler serves to help consumers find free, in-person help for signing up for health insurance through the Missouri Marketplace and Medicaid. Consumers can search by city or zip code for the assister location most convenient for them.
Tip Sheet: Important information for Cubans and Haitians entering the United States regarding Medical Care: This resource, created by NRC-RIM, is intended to provide information for Cubans and Haitians entering the United States regarding Medical Care.
COVID-19
At-Home Testing Translated Resources: NRC-RIM compiled instructions on how to take at-home COVID-19 tests for eight brands in a combined 30 languages in video or written format curated from organizations across the country.
Each U.S. household is eligible to order four free at-home COVID-19 tests. Order tests online at covid.gov/tests; the website is available in English and Spanish, and NRC-RIM has guides in several other languages that help people navigate the site.
Order COVID-19 Tests in 150+ Languages: The U.S. Government has set up a hotline for people who have trouble using the online ordering site or need help in languages other than English. Call 1-800-232-0233 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CT to order four tests per household.
Healthy Spaces Toolkit: As staying up to date on COVID-19 boosters and catching up on routine vaccinations becomes more important, having a thoughtfully designed space can ultimately support healthier communities. Translations now available in French, Pashto, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
Long COVID: Supporting Patients and Families: In a recent podcast episode, the Migrant Clinician’s Network discussed how clinicians can better address the needs of patients and families affected by long COVID. This episode explores the physical and psychological impacts of long COVID, focusing on supporting immigrant and migrant communities.
Medicaid
Medicaid Renewal Outreach Materials: Missouri Medicaid renewals are happening. Missourians must make sure their contact information is correct to get important updates in the mail and keep their coverage. Use these customizable flyers and social media content to help spread the word so Missourians can stay informed. Available in seven languages.
Medicaid Expansion Helpline for St. Louis Region: There’s a new resource available to consumers in the St. Louis region who are seeking Medicaid expansion information and assistance. SLU Law Center for Health Law Studies, the STL Regional Health Commission, and Legal Services of Eastern Missouri have created a Medicaid Expansion Helpline, which trained volunteers are staffing. The number is: 1-888-686-1744.
Three flyers are available to help you share information about this resource:
Switchboard video tutorial for Medicaid: This video tutorial, developed by Refugee Welcome Collective, provides an overview of Medicaid, who is eligible, what Medicaid helps pay for, and guidance on how to apply. This video is provided in Swahili, Spanish, Pashto, Dari, Burmese, and Arabic.
Conversation Guide: What You Need to Know About Medicaid: This resource and accompanying fact sheets in English, Dari, Pashto, Russian, and Ukrainian aid service providers in guiding newcomers as they learn about Medicaid and its benefits.
Missouri Medicaid in 2023: Missouri Foundation for Health hosted a webinar outlining Medicaid in Missouri. You can find the recording of the webinar here along with slides from the webinar, their Medicaid Basics Publication, and an At-a-Glance factsheet.
Stories from Assisters – Medicaid Expansion: Your Health is Worth it: Missouri Foundation for Health has created a new video to educate more Missourians about expansion and the help that’s available. They’ve also created a one-page flyer covering eligibility requirements for assisters and outreach workers.