During my tenure as an executive consultant to the Board of Directors and Trustees of Al Ahliyya Amman University (AAU) in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Jordan) from 2017 to 2018, I forged strong partnerships with the faculty, staff, students, and community leaders. I made it a priority to ensure that everyone’s values, viewpoints, and ideas were considered in the development of the university’s master plan. Initially, I conducted extensive meetings with deans, department chairs, faculty, staff, students, and community leaders, as well as associates from other Jordanian universities, to gain a thorough understanding of the university and the region, and to familiarize myself with Jordanian government offices and procedures. This assessment provided me with a comprehensive understanding of AAU’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the dominant leadership within the university and the community. Armed with this knowledge, I crafted a strategic plan that invited all stakeholders, including faculty, staff, students and alumni, university administration, board of directors members, community leaders, and politicians to attend the presentation. This was the first time all AAU stakeholders were included and actively engaged, underscoring their role in the AAU’s vision, mission, and goals. This process significantly expanded my network, not only within the AAU and general community but also with various academic institutions throughout Jordan.
The strategic plan had several key pillars, including the establishment of a Teaching and Learning Center in partnership with the University of Chicago. The center aims to develop, implement, and evaluate effective teaching and learning methods while integrating appropriate methodologies. Another pillar was community engagement, diversity, and multiculturalism, promoting diversity and inclusion on campus and working with Syrian refugees in the region through workshops and training for practitioners serving them in Jordan. The plan also emphasized the internationalization of teaching, research, and memorandums of understanding with universities from the UK, USA, and Canada, as well as the establishment of a women’s health center to address women’s health and mental health.
My time at the AAU provided me with a deep understanding of Jordan and the challenges it faces, particularly in serving over one million Syrian refugees. Before my work there, I had only visited Jordan as a tourist, enjoying its amenities and meeting acquaintances. However, my position at the AAU allowed me to meet people from all walks of life, from taxi drivers to politicians, university researchers to medical staff, psychologists to social workers, and NGO volunteers. Through these interactions, I gained invaluable insight into the people and stories that make up Jordan.
This book comprises nine chapters, beginning with an introduction in Chapter One. Chapter Two delves into the refugee challenge on a global scale, highlighting the many traumatic experiences that refugees face during their migration to a new country. These experiences can have long-lasting and severe physical, health-related, and mental health impacts, as demonstrated by the Syrian Refugee Crisis—one of the most significant human rights crises of the past decade. Syrian refugees remain one of the most vulnerable populations in the world today.
Chapter Three delves into the historical background of Jordan, a “country of refugees”, and the competition between Jordanians and refugees over scarce resources and opportunities. Chapter Four discusses human rights and refugees, exploring the access that refugees have to their human rights and the human rights violations that often occur as a result of forced migration. Chapter Five examines the psychosocial impact of refuge and migration on refugees.
Chapter Six, the methodology, outlines the three stages of the study, the strategies used, and the challenges encountered throughout the process. Chapter Seven presents the study’s findings. Chapter Eight emphasizes the importance of integrating culture and religion into mental health practices and explores the implications for practice with refugees, particularly those from non-Western societies, such as Arab Muslim communities.
Finally, Chapter Nine summarizes and examines the refugee situation from a social work perspective, exploring the psychosocial and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Syrian refugees and other conditions related to being refugees in Jordan.