Antidepression medication: Antidepressant medications help reduce the symptoms of depression such as: feeling extremely sad for no clear reason, loss of interest or pleasure, sleeping too much or too little feelings of worthlessness, guilt or worry.

Asylum Seeker: Asylum seekers are people who have applied for protection and are awaiting a determination of their status. Not all asylum seekers will be determined to be refugees.

CALD: Culturally and linguistically diverse.

Consumer: A person utilising, or who has utilised, a mental health service.

Culture: Can be defined as a “set of guidelines (both explicit and implicit) which individuals inherit as members of a particular society, and which tells them how to view the world, how to experience it emotionally, and how to behave in it in relation to other people, to supernatural forces or gods and to the natural environment” (Helman 1990).

Cultural diversity: Refers to the wide range of cultural groups that make up the Australian population and Australian communities. It includes groups and individuals who differ according to religion, race, or ethnicity.

Dari: Dari is the Afghan dialect of Farsi (Persian). It is written in a modified Arabic alphabet, and it has many Arabic and Persian loanwords.

Depressed mood: A sad or unhappy mood state.

Depression: The word “depression” is often used to describe the feelings of sadness which all of us experience at some stage of our lives. It is also a term used to describe a form of mental illness called clinical depression, which describes not just one illness but a group of illnesses characterised by excessive or long-term depressed mood which affects the person’s life. Clinical depression is often accompanied by feelings of anxiety.

Farsi: Farsi is language of Iran (formerly Persia) and is also widely spoken in Afghanistan and, in an archaic form, in Tajikistan and the Pamir Mountain region.

Mental health: A state of emotional and social wellbeing in which the individual can cope with the normal stresses of life and achieve his or her potential. It includes being able to work productively and contribute to community life. Mental health describes the capacity of individuals and groups to interact, inclusively and equitably, with one another and with their environment in ways that promote subjective wellbeing, and optimise opportunities for development and the use of mental abilities. Mental health is not simply the absence of mental illness.

Mental illness: A clinically diagnosable disorder that significantly interferes with an individual’s cognitive, emotional or social abilities. The diagnosis of mental illness is generally made according to the classification systems of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-IVR) or the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Edition (ICD-10).

Mualagh: A Dari word meaning floating in a sea of sad uncertainty.

Multiculturalism: The term multiculturalism summarises the way Australia addresses the challenges and opportunities of our cultural diversity. It is a term that recognises and celebrates Australia’s cultural diversity. It accepts and respects the right of all people in Australia to express and share their individual cultural heritage within an overriding commitment to Australia and the basic structures and values of Australian democracy. It also refers specifically to the strategies, policies and programs that are designed to make our administrative, social and economic infrastructure more responsive to the rights, obligations and needs of our culturally diverse population; promote social harmony among the different cultural groups in our society; and optimise the benefits of our cultural diversity for all people in Australia.

National Prescribing Service(NPS): Funding body of this project. The NPS is an independent, Australian organisation for Quality Use of Medicines. www.nps.org.au

New and emerging communities Communities are characterised as: Lacking institutional resources and being enable to draw on the collective experience; Needing to attract members; Not part of the existing network of funding; Small numbers of people who are newly arrived; Not haivng created a media; lack completed family networks, numbers and collective resources, knowledge of existing services, or effective organisations within a national network.

PPV: Permanent Protection Visa

Refugee: A refugee is legally defined as: Any person who owing to a well founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his/her nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself/herself of the protection of that country.

This definition comes from the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (the Refugee Convention) and is used by the Australian Government to determine whether our country has protection obligations towards an individual. If a person is found to be a refugee, Australia is obliged under international law to offer support and to ensure that the person is not sent back unwillingly to his/her country of origin.

TPV: Temporary Protection Visa