This report will be very useful to any service providers working with Hmong refugees coming from Wat Tham Krabok in Thailand. The assessment was completed by a delegation from the city of St. Paul, Minnesota, which visited the refugees in Wat Tham Krabok in March 2004. The delegation interviewed 91 families, representing 613 people, using a “Health and Well-Being Survey”, a “Quick Psycho-social Diagnostics” assessment, as well as individual interviews with refugees and local experts. The report discusses the history of the camp, refugees’ access to technology, educational opportunities and needs, literacy rates, employment skills and opportunities, current medical services and needs, current social services and needs, and mental health issues. Considers the needs of approximately 15,000 Hmong refugees living in a camp prior to relocation to Saint Paul, Minnesota in 2003. The public schools and public health systems must provide health screenings and immunization updates on the nearly 7,000 children under age 14. Programs for teen mothers are needed due to large numbers of married teenagers with children. English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and childcare are needed to support working-age adults prior to employment. Area health clinics will focus on the effects of chronic protein malnutrition and a strong public health outreach to educate and promote services. Social services will confront situational depression and anxiety as well as the effects of 50 years spent in war and exile. Lack of low-cost housing challenges U.S. families/sponsors of the refugees. Steps to prepare refugees for relocation prior to arrival in the U.S. are: (1) positioning health and mental health professionals to provide free public health care, (2) establishing basic ESL and adult education classes, and (3) providing treatment for drug addiction. Local communities must increase the number of Hmong interpreters, serve refugee students with developmental delays, ensure that medical centers can provide services to manage chronic illness (i.e., diabetes, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder), prepare adult learning centers for 1500 new adult learners, and identify creative housing solutions.
