This research investigates resettlement stress among African migrants in Australia and how migrants manage stress. The research used 30 semi-structured interviews with African migrants in Western Australia. Participants used various strategies, including reliance on family as a community and on God – usually constructed by alliance rather than kinship – to manage stress. The article’s key contribution highlights the multilayered approach for social work to integration strategies for migrants. The study identifies three significant issues emerging: the importance of ‘families’ as community networks, the experience of discrimination and the significance of faith in God as crucial migrant support factors.

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The paper examines stressors affecting involuntary and voluntary African migrants in Australia and how they cope with stress. Using semi-structured interviews, the paper examines the experiences of 30 African migrants in Australia. Most participants used a diversity of strategies including the reliance of God and family –usually constructed by alliance rather than kinship -to cope with stress. The key contribution of the paper is to go beyond traditional integration strategies to highlight the significance of God and family as remedies to ‘deliver’ the migrants from the obstacles to effective resettlement and psychological healing.Keywords: African migrants; stress; God; family; resettlement; coping strategies.

BackgroundMigrants include voluntary and involuntary migrants who have no intention of going back to their homeland (Muggah 2003, International Organization for Migration 2015. Voluntary migrants choose to move to another country, for example to seek employment and better life opportunities. In contrast, involuntary migrants -also known as refugees or forced migrants -are forced to leave their countries to escape civil wars, armed conflict, persecution or other disasters, and cannot return because of a well-founded fear of persecution (Toole and Waldman 1993). They may have experienced sudden unrest in their country and been forced to leave immediately amid chaos and uncertainty about the future (Crowley 2009). CitationIkafa IN, Holmes CA (2020) Empowering migrants during the resettlement process: applying Peplau's theory of interpersonal relations.