Ruth Wells
Biographic Data
| ID | 3936326 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ruth Wells |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ruth |
| FAMILY NAME | Wells |
| SIGNATURE | WELLS R |
| AFFILIATIONS | UNSW Sydney |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2408-095X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Designing a Peer Navigation Program Alongside Women With Lived Experience of Domestic, Family, and Sexual Violence
Social support coping strategies among sub-Saharan African refugees
Social support is a key coping resource; its specific role for refugees from sub-Saharan Africa in high-income settings remains poorly understood. This systematic review synthesises existing evidence on the sources of social support and how these networks aid coping during resettlement. We applied an optimised search strategy to identify studies examining social support among sub-Saharan African refugees across six academic indexing databases. We…
The localisation of humanitarian response to conflict and displacement
INTRODUCTION: The Grand Bargain Agreement at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit emphasised the need to reform the humanitarian system. Central to these reforms were commitments to localise humanitarian assistance by increasing funding and decision-making for local and national responders and shifting control away from international actors. Localisation has the potential to improve the operational effectiveness of humanitarian assistance, strength…
Testing the role of online group-based supervision for local humanitarian workers following a crisis
The 2023 Türkiye-Syria earthquakes caused widespread destruction, leaving millions without access to basic needs and services. Caring for Carers (C4C), an online group-based supervision program for Syrian mental health workers, started three months prior to the earthquakes. This study examined the role of this program in supporting the mental and occupational health of the participants following this crisis. A mixed-method longitudinal design was…
Contextualising person-centred mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services
Understanding and responding to patient expectations is crucial for providing high-quality, person-centred mental healthcare, but remains underexplored in humanitarian settings. This study examines the preferences and experiences of Syrian mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) service users in Northwest Syria and Türkiye. We conducted structured interviews with 378 displaced Syrians (55% female, mean age: 31 years). Participants complete…
Readiness of Exercise Physiologists, Physiotherapists and Other Allied Health Professionals to Respond to Gender-Based Violence
Experiencing gender-based violence (GBV) is associated with health conditions that are common indications for referral to exercise physiologists, physiotherapists and other allied health professionals (AHPs). The readiness of AHPs to identify and respond to GBV is currently unknown. This study aimed to determine the readiness of AHPs to respond to a person who had experienced GBV. Participants completed the modified Physician Readiness to Manage …
Yearning for Home
Clinical Supervision across Australia, Türkiye, Syria, and Bangladesh
Background: Clinical supervision in providing mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSSs) is an ethical imperative and a key to ensuring quality of care in terms of service users' skills enhancement, well-being, and satisfaction. However, humanitarian contexts in low-resource countries usually lack sufficient infrastructures to ensure staff have access to supervision. Against this backdrop, a pilot supervision program was introduced …
Key characteristics of the refugee journey for Iraqi and Syrian family members who support their children or siblings with disability
Refugees with disability and their families are increasingly resettled in Australia but remain an under-researched group. As such, this study aimed to understand experiences of disability for humanitarian migrants who support a family member with a disability. Interviews took place with 10 family members from Iraqi and Syrian refugee backgrounds living in Australia, whose children or siblings had disability. BenEzer and Zetter’s conceptualisation…
Dialogical inquiry
The aim of this paper is to describe a novel form of qualitative inquiry, dialogical inquiry, which allows for multiple investigators from different positions or traditions to collaboratively interpret qualitative data, engaging in a process of mutual influence to enrich both themselves and the process of analysis. We provide a clearly operationalized method, which is inspired by the philosophy of Bakhtin, as reimagined through practices from Ope…
Women and Stigma
This paper outlines a research and dissemination protocol to be undertaken with specific groups of marginalised women in Australia. Women impacted by significant mental distress, disability, or refugee status are among society's most vulnerable and disenfranchised groups. They can experience significant social exclusion, marginalisation and stigma, associated with reduced help seeking, deprivation of dignity and human rights, and threats to healt…
Exploring the intersection of human rights, health, disability and refugee status
Refugees often come from countries with histories of human rights violations and can face multiple challenges in building a new life in Australia. Little is known about the specific experiences of those who also live with a disability, and how this may impact their rights to health. We present an intersectional approach to using arts-based research to bring to light the embodied experiences of these people, who live at the intersection of multipl…
To the Arabic Community Disability Is Not Normal’
In 2015, the Australian government committed to take an additional 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq prioritizing those considered most vulnerable including people with disability. The aim of this preliminary study was to understand, from multiple stakeholder perspectives, the experiences of settling in Australia for people with disability from Syrian and Iraqi refugee backgrounds living in Sydney. Interviews were conducted with nine family mem…
Community readiness in the Syrian refugee community in Jordan
The knowledge of Syrian psychosocial activists in displaced communities is an invaluable resource for developing an ecological understanding of community needs and attitudes. This may elucidate the structural challenges of displacement to be addressed in psychosocial interventions. During Phase 1 of the study, we employed the community readiness model-a tool to assess community climate, needs, and resources-to determine community capacity-buildin…
An ecological model of adaptation to displacement
The transactional concepts in this model can help clinicians working with displaced people to consider and formulate a broader range of causal factors than is commonly included in individualistic therapy approaches. Researchers may use this model to develop testable hypotheses
Dialogical inquiry
The aim of this paper is to describe a novel form of qualitative inquiry, dialogical inquiry, which allows for multiple investigators from different positions or traditions to collaboratively interpret qualitative data, engaging in a process of mutual influence to enrich both themselves and the process of analysis. We provide a clearly operationalized method, which is inspired by the philosophy of Bakhtin, as reimagined through practices from Ope…
To the Arabic Community Disability Is Not Normal’
In 2015, the Australian government committed to take an additional 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq prioritizing those considered most vulnerable including people with disability. The aim of this preliminary study was to understand, from multiple stakeholder perspectives, the experiences of settling in Australia for people with disability from Syrian and Iraqi refugee backgrounds living in Sydney. Interviews were conducted with nine family mem…
Key characteristics of the refugee journey for Iraqi and Syrian family members who support their children or siblings with disability
Refugees with disability and their families are increasingly resettled in Australia but remain an under-researched group. As such, this study aimed to understand experiences of disability for humanitarian migrants who support a family member with a disability. Interviews took place with 10 family members from Iraqi and Syrian refugee backgrounds living in Australia, whose children or siblings had disability. BenEzer and Zetter’s conceptualisation…
Exploring the intersection of human rights, health, disability and refugee status
Refugees often come from countries with histories of human rights violations and can face multiple challenges in building a new life in Australia. Little is known about the specific experiences of those who also live with a disability, and how this may impact their rights to health. We present an intersectional approach to using arts-based research to bring to light the embodied experiences of these people, who live at the intersection of multipl…
Clinical Supervision across Australia, Türkiye, Syria, and Bangladesh
Background: Clinical supervision in providing mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSSs) is an ethical imperative and a key to ensuring quality of care in terms of service users' skills enhancement, well-being, and satisfaction. However, humanitarian contexts in low-resource countries usually lack sufficient infrastructures to ensure staff have access to supervision. Against this backdrop, a pilot supervision program was introduced …
An ecological model of adaptation to displacement
The transactional concepts in this model can help clinicians working with displaced people to consider and formulate a broader range of causal factors than is commonly included in individualistic therapy approaches. Researchers may use this model to develop testable hypotheses
Women and Stigma
This paper outlines a research and dissemination protocol to be undertaken with specific groups of marginalised women in Australia. Women impacted by significant mental distress, disability, or refugee status are among society's most vulnerable and disenfranchised groups. They can experience significant social exclusion, marginalisation and stigma, associated with reduced help seeking, deprivation of dignity and human rights, and threats to healt…
Exploring the intersection of human rights, health, disability and refugee status
Refugees often come from countries with histories of human rights violations and can face multiple challenges in building a new life in Australia. Little is known about the specific experiences of those who also live with a disability, and how this may impact their rights to health. We present an intersectional approach to using arts-based research to bring to light the embodied experiences of these people, who live at the intersection of multipl…
To the Arabic Community Disability Is Not Normal’
In 2015, the Australian government committed to take an additional 12,000 refugees from Syria and Iraq prioritizing those considered most vulnerable including people with disability. The aim of this preliminary study was to understand, from multiple stakeholder perspectives, the experiences of settling in Australia for people with disability from Syrian and Iraqi refugee backgrounds living in Sydney. Interviews were conducted with nine family mem…
Community readiness in the Syrian refugee community in Jordan
The knowledge of Syrian psychosocial activists in displaced communities is an invaluable resource for developing an ecological understanding of community needs and attitudes. This may elucidate the structural challenges of displacement to be addressed in psychosocial interventions. During Phase 1 of the study, we employed the community readiness model-a tool to assess community climate, needs, and resources-to determine community capacity-buildin…
Dialogical inquiry
The aim of this paper is to describe a novel form of qualitative inquiry, dialogical inquiry, which allows for multiple investigators from different positions or traditions to collaboratively interpret qualitative data, engaging in a process of mutual influence to enrich both themselves and the process of analysis. We provide a clearly operationalized method, which is inspired by the philosophy of Bakhtin, as reimagined through practices from Ope…
Key characteristics of the refugee journey for Iraqi and Syrian family members who support their children or siblings with disability
Refugees with disability and their families are increasingly resettled in Australia but remain an under-researched group. As such, this study aimed to understand experiences of disability for humanitarian migrants who support a family member with a disability. Interviews took place with 10 family members from Iraqi and Syrian refugee backgrounds living in Australia, whose children or siblings had disability. BenEzer and Zetter’s conceptualisation…
Yearning for Home
Clinical Supervision across Australia, Türkiye, Syria, and Bangladesh
Background: Clinical supervision in providing mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSSs) is an ethical imperative and a key to ensuring quality of care in terms of service users' skills enhancement, well-being, and satisfaction. However, humanitarian contexts in low-resource countries usually lack sufficient infrastructures to ensure staff have access to supervision. Against this backdrop, a pilot supervision program was introduced …
Readiness of Exercise Physiologists, Physiotherapists and Other Allied Health Professionals to Respond to Gender-Based Violence
Experiencing gender-based violence (GBV) is associated with health conditions that are common indications for referral to exercise physiologists, physiotherapists and other allied health professionals (AHPs). The readiness of AHPs to identify and respond to GBV is currently unknown. This study aimed to determine the readiness of AHPs to respond to a person who had experienced GBV. Participants completed the modified Physician Readiness to Manage …
The localisation of humanitarian response to conflict and displacement
INTRODUCTION: The Grand Bargain Agreement at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit emphasised the need to reform the humanitarian system. Central to these reforms were commitments to localise humanitarian assistance by increasing funding and decision-making for local and national responders and shifting control away from international actors. Localisation has the potential to improve the operational effectiveness of humanitarian assistance, strength…
Testing the role of online group-based supervision for local humanitarian workers following a crisis
The 2023 Türkiye-Syria earthquakes caused widespread destruction, leaving millions without access to basic needs and services. Caring for Carers (C4C), an online group-based supervision program for Syrian mental health workers, started three months prior to the earthquakes. This study examined the role of this program in supporting the mental and occupational health of the participants following this crisis. A mixed-method longitudinal design was…
Contextualising person-centred mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services
Understanding and responding to patient expectations is crucial for providing high-quality, person-centred mental healthcare, but remains underexplored in humanitarian settings. This study examines the preferences and experiences of Syrian mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) service users in Northwest Syria and Türkiye. We conducted structured interviews with 378 displaced Syrians (55% female, mean age: 31 years). Participants complete…
Designing a Peer Navigation Program Alongside Women With Lived Experience of Domestic, Family, and Sexual Violence
Social support coping strategies among sub-Saharan African refugees
Social support is a key coping resource; its specific role for refugees from sub-Saharan Africa in high-income settings remains poorly understood. This systematic review synthesises existing evidence on the sources of social support and how these networks aid coping during resettlement. We applied an optimised search strategy to identify studies examining social support among sub-Saharan African refugees across six academic indexing databases. We…
Migration, Health and Trauma (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Medicine (6 works) · Refugee (6 works) · Mental health (5 works) · Qualitative research (5 works) · Nursing (4 works) · Psychiatry (4 works)