Kin-Nection

Hey hey, I'm Jenn, the founder of Kin-nection. Kin is a 501c3 public charity org whose mission is to connect displaced people with mental health support in their chosen language. We understand that in order to do this, we need to train up therapists who haven't had on-the- ground or clinical experience with refugee communities. There are so many talented people who want to help but are hesitant to commit without building up their competency. We are building out a free program online to help with this.

Then we have the issue of language. In workshops I've facilitated for first responders, a common question is, "how do we support them when we don't speak their language?" While non-verbal communication and machine translation goes a long way, we need language professionals! There are a lot of bilingual people out there who have interpreted but they haven't been trained in interpretation. It will work in a pinch but a lot of communication can be lost without these skills. In therapy, having accurate communication is essential.

As such, Kin is working with trained interpreters who are language professionals and intercultural experts to ensure that accurate communication and quality therapy is being offered to the people who need it the most. We are also offering free courses to help build awareness for interpreters working in mental health and to help therapists learn how to work with interpreters effectively.

And of course -- we want to make sure our professionals get paid. This is why we need your help. Therapists often reduce their fee to work with vulnerable populations for obvious reasons. But it's hard work and it should not go uncompensated. Similarly, interpreters also are impacted by the content they hear and communicate. At Kin-nection, we value people's time and energy and we believe that when we can compensate people, it helps people continue to engage in this heartwork! We can't afford to pay the full fee but we want to offer $100 USD for all professionals working with us.

Thank you for considering us -- please reach out if you can have questions.

Kin-nection's website.