Veranstaltungsprogramm

Background

Volkshilfe Vienna’s “SANEAS Gesundheitslots*innen” project trains volunteer health guides from migrant communities to strengthen health literacy through workshops delivered in their native languages, English, and/or German. While the programme was designed to support community members in navigating the Austrian health system, the broader evaluation sought to understand what experience health guides had within their communities.

Methods

To explore the role and impact of health guides, the study applied the Most Significant Change (MSC) storytelling methodology. Health guides shared their experiences in face‑to‑face interviews conducted in German, which were audio‑recorded and transcribed using AI. One researcher transformed each transcript into a short narrative, which was then validated by the storytellers. During a collaborative Discussion Day, health guides, researchers, and the Volkshilfe project team jointly analysed all stories to identify recurring themes and synthesise the most significant outcomes.

Results

Eight health guides representing five countries contributed stories. All had migrated to Austria as refugees or migrants and held professional backgrounds outside the health sector. Their narratives revealed that health guides assumed a far broader and more influential role than originally envisioned. Beyond delivering workshops, they became trusted community anchors—accompanying individuals to medical appointments, advising on education and training opportunities, and providing daily informal guidance. Importantly, the role also had a transformative effect on the guides themselves. Training and practical experience strengthened their self efficacy, improved their German language skills, expanded their social networks, and enhanced their sense of belonging. Several reported pursuing new professional opportunities as a result.

Conclusion

The health guide role generates substantial dual‑level impact: it strengthens community navigation in the health system while simultaneously empowering the guides through increased confidence, integration, and employability. Based on these findings, a larger-scale impact assessment will take place in 2026 to strengthen evidence for a scale-up of this approach.

Background: Public health research has historically prioritized biomedical and quantitative

approaches, often failing to capture the complexity of women’s health within the context of

human mobility. Among Latin American migrant women, emotional distress is frequently

medicalized or silenced, obscuring the underlying social, structural, and gender-based

determinants. This study aims to bridge this epistemological gap by employing qualitative

methodologies that recover lived experiences and the signification processes of suffering.

Methods: A qualitative study grounded in feminist and intersectional epistemologies was

conducted in Spain. Twenty semi-structured interviews were carried out with Latin American

migrant women residing in the Region of Murcia. Using a narrative approach and rigorous

thematic analysis, the study explored migratory trajectories, perceptions of vulnerability, and the

discursive construction of emotional distress.

Results: The analysis reveals that psychological distress is not an isolated phenomenon but is

intrinsically linked to transnational motherhood, child separation, labor precarity, and

institutional violence. Participants tend to privatize this distress, adhering to gender mandates

regarding strength and caregiving. However, the study evidenced that the narrative process

serves as a powerful public health tool: storytelling facilitated emotional validation, the

resignification of traumatic experiences, and the fostering of personal agency.

Conclusions: Narrative methodologies are indispensable for inclusive public health research.

They effectively unveil the impact of structural inequalities on mental health and provide a

framework for psychosocial interventions that are culturally situated, gender-sensitive, and

ethically committed to migrant populations.

Introduction: Pediatric mental health services in regions with a large number of community members with Language Preferences other than English, such as Baltimore, Maryland, often face challenges related to language access and can hinder effective communication among providers, youth, families, and interpreters. We present the methods and findings from a group model building exercise, which mapped the complexities of language access from multiple perspectives to identify and address challenges.

Methods: A group model building workshop was conducted in April 2025 with ~20 participants, including therapists, interpreters, and family representatives. Participants engaged in activities designed to identify and prioritize challenges, understand the relationships between barriers and facilitators, and hypothesize potential intervention areas. A causal loop diagram was developed and refined after the workshop to visually represent the system of interest and entry points for interventions. Qualitative data from focus group discussions, reported elsewhere, informed this process.

Results: Through facilitated discussions, participants identified key barriers and facilitators, resulting in a preliminary map of relationships between family and health care delivery systems. We identified multiple feedback loops and interdependencies among interpreter-related aspects and both clinicians and patients. The insights derived from the workshop highlight the central role of interpreters in the development and sustainment of the therapeutic alliance between providers and families.

Conclusion: The workshop approach was productive, despite time and resource limitations. The diagram is a valuable tool for future operations research and quality improvement efforts, such as developing system dynamics simulations for policy analysis, as well as for conducting scenario building for potential interventions, ultimately aiming to improve care delivery in multilingual settings. Given similar demographic shifts and increasing linguistic diversity across the European Union, including Austria, these findings offer timely guidance for strengthening equitable, culturally responsive mental health services.

Background: Within the Erasmus+ project “Knowled3xchange – Improvement of the care dialogue between practice, education and science” (co-funded by the EU) workshops discussing language and diversity in care work have been organized in Germany, Poland, and Austria. The project aimed to strengthen the dialogue between practice, education, and research and to promote knowledge transfer. Participating institutions included FOM University of Applied Sciences in Germany, the Medical University of Silesia in Poland, and FH JOANNEUM in Austria.

Method: The workshops provided a forum for joint reflection for professionals, educators, researchers, and other stakeholders in healthcare. A total of 127 persons participated. The first workshops focused on “Language in Care Work,” the second on “Diversity in Care Work,” and the third session involved discussions of concrete project ideas. Participatory formats such as World Café and Future Workshop were employed. Practical experience was gathered, discussed, and translated into concrete recommendations.

Results: Language and diversity are of importance in high-quality, patient-centered care. Adapted, respectful, and empathetic communication strengthens trust and patients' health literacy, and influences compliance and well-being. At the same time, challenges exist, such as language barriers, time constraints, a lack of standards, and uncertainties in dealing with diversity. Aspects such as migration, age, dementia, physical or cognitive impairments, and LGBTQIA+ identities are particularly relevant.

Alongside the challenges, numerous opportunities were identified. Multilingualism within the team, empathy, a culturally sensitive approach, an open culture of learning from mistakes, and interprofessional collaboration were identified as important resources. Diversity affects not only patients but also teams and organizations.

Discussion: Language and diversity are central cross-cutting themes in care. The results show that a stronger anchor of these priorities in guiding principles, training and education as well as additional resources for establishment are necessary in order to guarantee an inclusive, patient-oriented and future-proof care practice.