Asylum Seeker Advocacy

DASSAN provides advocacy and support services that benefit asylum seekers in the community and in immigration detention in Darwin that include:

• Direct provision of welfare and emotional support to asylum seekers;
• Brokering for pro-bono legal, medical and housing services for asylum seekers;
• Supporting community members to advocate asylum seekers; and
• Promoting an awareness of the issues affecting asylum seekers.

Please note: DASSAN is volunteer run organisation, please make contact via our website https://www.dassan.org/ contact us page and someone will respond asap.

This program was developed by the Forum of Australian Services for Survivors of Torture and Trauma, to support survivors of torture and trauma by providing specialised services to improve their emotional and mental wellbeing. The Program is open to permanently resettled refugees and humanitarian entrants and those on temporary substantive visas living in the community, who are experiencing psychological or psychosocial difficulties related to their experience before coming to Australia. It offers a safe, professional and nurturing environment for clients to discuss their pain, deal with their grief and address their fears. Ultimately, the Program’s goal is to help clients to heal, with a focus on counselling.

Melaleuca Australia places great importance on creating workshops where families experience a supportive, nurturing and learning environment. Content is delivered in language or with interpreters present and covers a range of topics including:

• Positive parenting and care approaches
• Maintaining healthy family relationships
• Child protection
• Domestic Violence
• Managing Family Conflict
• Skills to develop respectful relationships

This initiative was launched on 30 October 2017, replacing the two existing programs of Humanitarian Settlement Services and Complex Case Support. Melaleuca Australia is proud to have been selected by the Australian Government to deliver the Program throughout the Northern Territory as one of five national Service Providers. The Program’s aim is to help people from refugee or humanitarian backgrounds to settle in Australia by working in conjunction with other settlement and mainstream services. Adopting a needs-based case management approach, the services offered ensure the highest possible level of community integration and interaction for our clients.

This program provides a wide range of support services for young people aged 12 – 21 years of age from refugee, humanitarian and migrant backgrounds who:

• have arrived in Australia in the previous five years on humanitarian and/or family visas; and
• are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Reconnect Youth aims to assist young people to stabilise their living situation and improve their level of engagement with family, work, education, training and their local community.

Melaleuca Australia has been appointed and is funded by the Department of Social Services as a Specialist Service Provider to coordinate and deliver the program.

Central to our service delivery is a strong emphasis on culturally appropriate support strategies and the engagement of specialists to address the individual needs of our clients, such as mental health services.

The Melaleuca Australia Settlement Support Services program aims to equip and empower humanitarian entrants, other eligible permanent migrants and their communities to meet their settlement needs within their first five years within Australia.

The Program provides clients with settlement-related information, advice, advocacy and assistance to access mainstream and other relevant services. The key components include:

• Facilitating acquisition of English language skills
• Supporting engagement with education and training; and
• Building employment readiness