Stories of Strength: A Community-Driven Approach
SLIDES COMING SOON
Overview
Stories of St rength is a trauma-informed, culturally agile program that uses the Roots of Safety (ROS) framework to support immigrant and refugee communities impacted by relationship violence. Operating at both individual , family and community levels, the program empowers through personalized empowerment plans and community-led engagement. Community champions are trained to introduce ROS in culturally relevant ways, while coordinators work one-on-one with families to develop tailored plans using the ROS “Three Columns”: identifying challenges, recognizing strengths, and creating actionable empowerment steps. Serving African, South Asian, and Middle Eastern communities, the project developed culturally responsive toolkits. Key learnings include the importance of culturally sensitive engagement, non-judgmental inquiry, and beginning conversations from shared interests—not taboo topics. This presentation will explore the ROS model, community empowerment strategies, and how trauma-informed, culturally safe practices can enhance professional development and support mental health recovery in immigrant and refugee populations.Speakers
Meenu Dhillon
Meenu has worked with Immigrant and Refugee families for over 14 years. Sh e holds M Ed . in Adult Learning. Coming from an immigrant family, sh e understands the dynamics and challenges of immigrants families in-depth. In her recent role with Sto ries of St rength project at DIVERSEcity , sh e is training the Community Champions to develop safety plans with clients. This project is a community effort to prevent violence in families targeting Gender-based violence, Senior Abuse and Child maltreatment.
Golnoo sh Hakiman
Golnoo sh has worked as a counselor with Violence Prevention programs, supporting immigrant and refugee families for the past 20 years. Her recent programs are Roots of Safety, Sto ries of St rength and HEAL Employment for women. Her work with DIVERSEcity also includes program development and training staff in safety planning for clients.
