Role of Burundian Community Health Workers in family stabilization, education and referrals: An important link in a community safety net

Extensive effort has been implemented by the University of Tennessee in response to this preliminary data collected on the Burundian population in this area. The Burundians who have been resettled in this community have severe limitations causing barriers to successful integration and stabilization. Very few have basic English proficiency skills to navigate well in their environments, and many are illiterate in their own language of Kirundi, therefore the translation of materials is useless. The Burundians were interviewed in focus groups in 2008-2009. Noted in the interviews was their “deep sadness”. Over half of those interviewed stated that they would like to return refugee camps, even if there is war, because they know how to live in the camps. They cannot live and care for their families in the U.S. Also noted was the number of health issues they identified such as aches and pains, headaches, old injuries that have never healed, and “bad thoughts” (memories). Within the last year, there has been a significant increase in the number of domestic violence and abuse cases attributed to alcohol among Burundians.

The Healing Transitions project at the University of Tennessee is a multi-disciplinary community based participatory research project involving 12 students in service learning. The project developed a community collaboration to train 12 Burundian refugees to act as Community Health Workers (CHW) to interface with a newly established interdisciplinary community safety net. The results of a community based CHW training program will be presented as well as the remarkable challenges and successes.