Jonathan Bridekirk

York University · Department of Psychology

Resettlement country language literacy facilitates integration and counteracts social and economic marginalization. Thus, access to language learning is a social justice issue. Resettled refugees in Canada are eligible for free English/French language training. Between 2015-2017, Canada resettled 47,735 Syrian refugees. We explored predictors of la...

Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care expanded its facility in 2014 to include a new state-of-the-art forensic hospital building, called the Atrium. Prior to moving Waypoint’s forensic programs into the Atrium, the Therapeutic Climate Study (TCS) was launched in order to monitor changes in perceived and objective safety indicators among forensic s...

Finding appropriate employment is a common challenge faced by refugees when resettling in a new country. For refugees with higher education, finding work commensurate with their skills and qualifications may be even more difficult. Refugees with higher education may experience more distress around employment because their expectations for employmen...

This brief report explored trends of cigarette smoking among Syrian newcomers in the first two years of resettlement in Canada. 1794 adult Syrian refugees were surveyed about their physical and mental health, and smoking behaviours. Results were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, and logistic regressions. Almost 27%...

There is little longitudinal research that directly compares the effectiveness of Canada's Government-Assisted Refugee (GAR) and Privately Sponsored Refugee (PSR) Programs that takes into account possible socio-demographic differences between them. This article reports findings from 1,921 newly arrived adult Syrian refugees in British Columbia, Ont...

There is little longitudinal research that directly compares the effectiveness of Canada’s Government-Assisted Refugee (GAR) and Privately Sponsored Refugee (PSR) Programs that takes into account possible socio-demographic differ-ences between them. This article reports findings from 1,921 newly arrived adult Syrian refugees in British Columbia, On...

Psynopsis, Canada's Psychology Magazine, 2018. For access to the full Psynopsis magazine please go to: https://cpa.ca/psynopsis/

Passionate activities can be a source of pleasure and meaning. According to the Dualistic Model of Passion individuals can have either a harmonious or an obsessive passion for an activity. Where harmonious passions provide positive emotional experience, obsessive passions do not. Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory holds that ongoing positive ex...