University-based services for asylum seekers on Guam: Empowerment, culture learning and community

Theoretical frameworks addressing social support, community building, and the affective, behavioral and cognitive factors in coping with acculturative stress, guide an analysis of two interventions by University of Guam faculty, in support of Kurdish and Burmese asylum seekers on Guam. The article provides insights concerning the potential contributions of non-refugee specialist university faculty to services for refugees: persons in the most stressful of cross-cultural transitions. The authors discuss the ways in which both findings from traditional acculturation studies, and needs assessment studies of Kurdish and Burmese asylum seekers, guided intervention services rendered to both groups.