Rafik Tanious

Rafik Tanious has worked across the social ecologies of education, mental health and social services with children and young people for the past 30 years both locally and internationally. He has extensive field work experience working with children and adolescents with refugee backgrounds in case work, education and counselling. Rafik has a continuing interest in trauma recovery, anti-racism, and youth identity formation and has developed racial literacy, and racial resilience programs for young people with refugee experiences and produced anti-racism films on Cabramatta for the NSW Premiers department.

Rafik has also been employed as a consultant and trainer with universities in supporting the mental health of international students, developing orientation programs and inter-cultural learning frameworks and facilitating cross cultural parenting programs. He has worked as an adult educator at TAFE NSW in the community services and health faculties and holds post graduate qualifications in counselling, education and film production with an interest in promoting children and young people’s rights, recovery, and facilitating opportunities for young people and children to tell their own stories of survival and healing. Rafik currently works at STARTTS as a school liaison project officer, counsellor and trainer.