Frontline staff in Europe’s collective reception centers face refugees as asylum seekers who have endured perilous journeys and now navigate complex bureaucratic systems. A new study asks what concrete guidance can help staff hold better, more humane mental health conversations.
Using a three‑round expert survey, the authors produced 94 draft guidelines. Ninety‑one reached consensus, including directives to “do no harm,” avoid imposing Western categories, mitigate power imbalances, and, where appropriate, support a resident’s asylum claim.
The paper, published in the International Journal of Migration, Health and Social Care, describes an expert Delphi process to “establish consensus‑based guidance for frontline transcultural mental health conversations in these settings.”
Beyond technique, many recommendations take aim at assumptions that can narrow care.
One guideline says, “Do not cast Western mental health categories as universal,” a direct rebuke to a one‑size‑fits‑all diagnostic lens.
Another instructs workers to “accept that there is a power inequality in your relationship but try to mitigate it.”
Experts also agreed that staff should “identify and acknowledge injustices faced by asylum seekers” and “safeguard human rights and social justice.”
The authors emphasize that mental health needs should be understood “within the broader context in which asylum seekers typically find themselves,” not as isolated individual problems. They advise staff to be “familiar with the basics of the asylum policy and procedure,” and to recognize how “systemic and structural factors influence an individual’s mental health capacity and needs.”
These recommendations, developed through a Delphi review with experts in transcultural psychology, psychiatry, and social work, emerge at a time when research is increasingly showing how immigration policies and standard clinical models can exacerbate rather than alleviate suffering. Against this backdrop, the new transcultural guidelines aim to equip frontline staff with practical tools that prevent retraumatization, avoid reproducing exclusionary practices, and support asylum seekers in ways that prioritize dignity, context, and human rights.
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