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Departmental Overview

The PCH Refugee Health Service (RHS) coordinates and manages the complex care needs of recently resettled refugee and asylum seeker children and adolescents up to 16 years of age. Our specialist multidisciplinary medical, nursing, social work, dietetic, dental, mental health and school liaison staff offer a holistic service to meet the needs of refugee children, adolescents and their families. The CAHS RHS integration project is also underway with an aim to improving the journey of refugee families across CAHS.

The PCH RHS is committed to culturally appropriate and trauma-informed clinical research and quality assurance projects. Current studies aim to improve patient care, identify gaps in current clinical knowledge and provide an evidence base to inform state and national refugee health policy and practice. Collaborative qualitative and quantitative research studies are undertaken RHS in collaboration with other PCH departments, Division of Paediatrics and Child Health (UWA) and/or other groups (e.g. Oral Health Centre of Western Australia, Telethon Kids Institute. Professional interpreters are utilised to ensure that families with limited English proficiency are able to participate in clinical research.

Research Projects 

Ethical approval is obtained through the Child and Adolescent Health Service (CAHS) PMH Human Research Ethics Committee and/or other relevant Human Ethics boards. Awareness of the issues surrounding appropriate informed consent (especially in low literacy and/or traumatised populations) is an important consideration in this cohort.

Consumer participatory research as well as qualitative research has been undertaken by the RHS, with results contributing to the national refugee health evidence base and treatment frameworks. The PCH RHS is also part of the Australian Paediatric Refugee Health Network. Please contact the RHS Clinical Lead if you are interested in undertaking research, quality assurance or collaborating with the RHS.

Current Research Projects

• Audit of Middle Eastern families resettled through the PMH/PCH RHS (Led by Lindsay K)
• Identifying barriers to the management of Type 1 Diabetes in non-Caucasian families (Led by Abraham M)
• Use of SDF application to arrest dental caries in paediatric refugees – a conservative approach (Led by Patel J).
• Exploring the impact of interpreters on health care needs of refugee children and families with limited English proficiency (LEP) in a Western Australian paediatric hospital setting (Led by Cherian S).
• Oral health delivery to refugee children in WA – perspective of health stakeholders (Led by Slack-Smith L)
• Evaluation of the impact of migration and culturally linguistically diverse backgrounds on developmental and behavioural conditions (Led by Abduhllahi I).
• RHS database analyses  (Led by Mutch R)
• Evaluation of national paediatric refugee health services (Led by Gunasakera H)

Future Research Projects

• Assessing readiness of transition of RHS patients into mainstream health pathways using standardised RHS transition assessment proformas 
• Adverse Childhood Experiences in refugee families
• Longitudinal health outcomes of RHS families
• Audit of refugees with complex health and/or disability and access to mainstream services, adult transition and NDIS
• Role of improving interpreter use (QI/SI project)
• Development of community outreach clinics for adolescent refugees.