Improving refugee health training in Aotearoa
The challenge
The Refugee and Migrant Support team at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) engaged StudioC to develop a training programme for the refugee health sector. The aim was to improve the accessibility, consistency, and quality of healthcare delivery for former quota refugees in Aotearoa.
Refugee healthcare is a long journey, including offshore medical assessments, arrival and screening at the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, and ongoing care delivered through community health providers. Each stage involves different organisations, making it difficult to create continuity throughout a person’s health journey.
This lack of continuity means that healthcare workers sometimes lack an overall understanding of the whole healthcare journey. For example, the community healthcare providers may not trust offshore medical information, leading to redoing assessments and unnecessary delays for patients during an already stressful time.
This meant the end solution had multiple needs:
- Simplify a complex system into something understandable
- Build shared understanding across the three stages of care
- Deliver learning that respects clinicians’ time while improving
consistency of care.
Our approach began with co-design, getting immersed in the system and the experience for both former refugees and healthcare workers.
We visited the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre, spent time with subject matter experts, and engaged directly with healthcare professionals and community workers involved in refugee health.
The insights learned in this phase informed the structure and tone of the resulting learning experience. Instead of creating a single dense training package, StudioC created three targeted learning chapters aligned to each stage of the refugee health journey, so that every person who went through the course would understand the whole process.
These three chapters covered:
- The process overseas – understanding pre-departure health assessments, and why accurate measurement and documentation matter from the outset
- Arrival and resettlement at the Mangere Refugee Centre – understanding context, screening outcomes, and transitional care needs
- Community healthcare – delivering ongoing care with confidence in prior assessments and patient history
These were shared as micro-learning assets, designed for busy clinicians. Each module could be completed anytime, anywhere.
To bring the system to life, we produced:
- Short-form video featuring lived experience narratives from former refugees, including a family from the Democratic Republic of Congo
- Interviews with clinicians working directly in refugee and migrant health, including GPs with high proportions of refugee patients
- Bespoke illustrations to simplify complex processes and support retention
StudioC led the end-to-end development including writing, designing, illustrating, and producing the eLearning modules in collaboration with subject matter experts.
