Resettling refugees and safeguarding their mental health: Lessons learned from the Canadian Refugee Resettlement Project. Transcult Psychiatry

between 1979 and 1981, is one of the largest, most comprehensive and longest-lived investigations of refugee resettlement ever carried out. Knowl-edge gleaned from the RRP about research methodology, about the resettle-ment experience, about the social costs of resettling refugees, about factors that promote or hinder integration, about risk and protective factors for refugee mental health, and about the refugees ’ consumption of mental health and social services is summarized in the form of 18 “Lessons. ” The lessons are offered in order to encourage and stimulate further research, as well to suggest policy and practice innovations that could help make resettlement easier, less costly, more effective, and more humane. Key words integration • mental health • refugee • resettlement • Southeast Asian Canada is one of 147 United Nations member states to have signed the UN Convention on refugees, joining in an international commitment to provide asylum for the persecuted and stateless. Canada is also one of a much smaller group of Convention signatories – about 20 – who offer not just temporary protection, but the option of permanent resettlement. Vol 46(4): 539–583 DOI: 10.1177/1363461509351373 www.sagepublications.com Copyright © 2009 McGill University transcultural psychiatr