Priscilla Bul lost her father and siblings during the second South Sudanese civil war.
The 20 year-old says she could not fully deal with her loss until she resettled in Australia years later.
"When I look at cousins or friends, they talk about relationships with their fathers or with their other siblings and this and that, and their grandparents, you know, I feel I missed out, really. It's something that I've never known."
After fleeing her homeland Sudan in 1997, Ms Bul spent six years in a refugee camp in Kenya.
She says, at that time, survival was her only priority.
"You didn't have time to think about your mental health or think about such things like that. You focused on getting through the day and waking up tomorrow, little things, like, 'Is there a roof over my head tonight? Have I got food in my stomach?'"
Like Ms Bul, for most refugees, the healing process cannot begin until they have resettled in a safe country.
Nooria Mehraby knows all too well.
For the past 22 years, she has worked for the Service for the Treatment of Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma Survivors, or STARTTS.
Ms Mehraby is also a refugee herself, fleeing her homeland of Afghanistan in 1998.
She says exposure to violence is endemic to the refugee narrative.
"It's a part of the refugee experiences, because you don't leave your country with your passport and visa in your hand, you're leaving circumstances of extreme violence."
Paris Aristotle is chief executive of the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture.
He says refugees carry their experiences of violence, persecution and torture into their new lives.
"Many refugees have been through, personally, direct experiences of torture, or experienced violence and other traumatic circumstances, so there's a very high prevalence of trauma and torture across people who are arriving."
Assisting recovery from trauma is central to refugee resettlement.
And with displaced people around the world at record numbers now, adopting the right approaches is more crucial than ever.
The Australian and New Zealand Refugee Trauma and Recovery in Resettlement Conference underway in Sydney is looking at how that can best be achieved.
It is the first conference of its type in Australia, with over 600 attendees and around a hundred speakers, including many international specialists.
Mr Aristotle says the conference is aimed at promoting successful interventions that help with trauma recovery.
"This conference provides an opportunity for that knowledge and that expertise to be shared with other providers and other services in Australia, so it's very complementary in further improving Australia's ability to help refugees who have been through incredibly difficult and traumatic experiences."
That knowledge is something Priscilla Bul hopes to take back to the South Sudanese community, where, she says, mental health is a taboo subject.
"And I'm hoping that, with better education and, I guess, with the time that we've spent here, more people are able to really open up and talk about their experiences and really just immerse themselves in the process of healing and really understanding what it is they have gone through."
