Introduction

Why visitor wellbeing is important

Visiting people in immigration detention can be difficult.

The physical and mental harm caused by immigration detention is well documented. As a visitor, you will more than likely bear witness to this harm.

Detention can cause profound distress, and it is common for visitors to experience sadness, uncertainty and a sense of powerlessness while trying to offer support within this environment. These feelings can arise whether your involvement is brief or ongoing.

If you are an Immigration Removal Centre (IRC)/ Prison visitor, you may return multiple times to build continued connection with the same person. The effects of this repeated exposure to distress, hardship and uncertainty can accumulate over time.

If you are a Residential Short Term Holding Facility (RSTHF) visitor, your visit to someone may be a one-off occasion. Even a single interaction in this context can be challenging, as you may encounter people at moments of vulnerability or crisis.

Visiting can be a powerful expression of care towards other people. It is also important to practice this same care towards yourself. How we care for ourselves, and others, builds our collective resilience to carry this work in the long-term.

It is therefore important to understand the ways that visiting impacts you and proactively take care of yourself to best manage this.

The following information might not completely capture the complexity of visiting or your individual response to it. You will know your own body best, both in the way it responds to stress and the strategies that you use to manage this. However, frameworks are useful tools for gaining new perspectives and insight into our experiences, and they can help to:

1. Identify what you are experiencing

2. Manage those impacts and take proactive steps to look after yourself

3. Create a shared understanding and language when speaking with other people

Cultural Considerations

Western psychology has a tendency to focus on the symptoms of stress and trauma rather than what is causing these. This risks viewing stress and trauma through an individualistic lens that pathologises normal responses to injustice.

It is human, and a positive thing, that we feel connected to one another, and that we assume responsibility for each other's freedom and wellbeing.

Prioritising our own wellbeing allows us to learn what causes our stress and trauma, on both an individual and collective level, and it allows us to be better prepared to transform the conditions that have created this.