Working with Immigrant Women addresses the gap between the needs of newcomer women and established structures and practices in Canada’s mental health care system.

With an interest in changing paradigms in mental health practice, the multidisciplinary group of authors—including researchers, mental health practitioners, health promoters, community development workers, university professors, diversity trainers, program coordinators and community mental health advocates—analyzes issues affecting women’s mental health and illnesses within an immigration and settlement context, critically examines literature and current research and suggests practice strategies for mental health professionals working with this population.

Working with Immigrant Women highlights the intersecting oppressions experienced by women while emphasizing their strengths and resiliencies. It also demonstrates how women are active participants in shaping their mental health and responding to mental health problems.

Topics include:

• theoretical perspectives
• recognizing social determinants of depression, the role of spirituality, issues around interpretation and barriers to accessing services and their implications for practice
• working with specific groups: Sudanese, Caribbean, lesbian, refugee and older women and girls
• critical concerns for women: trauma, intimate partner violence and postpartum depression.

The authors provide innovative approaches that mental health professionals can use to enhance current practice and ensure equitable, relevant and comprehensive care. This book is a valuable resource for health care professionals, administrators, educators, researchers and policy-makers, and is an ideal course text.

Sepali Guruge, RN, BScN, M.Sc., PhD is an Associate Professor, School of Nursing, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario. Sepali’s nursing experience includes practice, teaching, research and consultation at several major hospitals in Toronto. Her teaching and research interests are in the areas of women’s health, immigrants’ health, mental health and violence against women throughout the migration process. She obtained her education in Sri Lanka, in the former Soviet Union and in Canada. Sepali’s doctoral dissertation in nursing from the University of Toronto explored the influence of gender, racial, social and economic inequalities on the production of and responses to intimate partner violence in the post-migration context. Her post-doctoral work in nursing at the University of Western Ontario focused on the health effects of partner violence. Sepali has published and presented papers both nationally and internationally, and is presently engaged in international research on women’s health with colleagues in Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, "mainland" United States and Hawaii.

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Enid Collins, RN, MS, M.Ed., EdD. Professor Emeritus, School of Nursing, Ryerson University, Toronto, Ontario. Before coming to Canada Enid completed a diploma as a registered nurse at the Kingston Public Hospital School of Nursing in Jamaica. She later did undergraduate and graduate work in Canada and the United States. Enid’s work in nursing leadership, practice and education spans many areas, including maternal child health nursing, community health nursing, women’s health and transcultural health. She has long been an advocate, mentor and role model for women in nursing and health care. Enid completed her doctoral work in sociology and equity studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her doctoral dissertation examined career mobility among Caribbean women who were registered nurses in Canada.

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