Day 1 - Friday, November 11, 2022
Title: Embracing Refugees, Immigrants, and Asylees through Trauma Informed Care
Friday Workshop – 6 CE Credits (3 EDI)
This six-hour training is for psychologists, social workers, and mental health professionals interested in gaining knowledge and clinical skills when working with refugees, immigrants, and asylees. Some experience with trauma-informed care is useful but not necessary. The training includes a combination of didactics, discussion, and activities. Conference participants will review the current global refugee crisis and mental health treatment for adults, children, and families. Conference participants will have the opportunity to gain in-depth practice with ten modules of the Chronic Traumatic Stress Treatment (CTS-T) for refugees and survivors of torture and utilize a language-free mobile mental health application as a component of CTS-T. Cultural considerations when providing services are highlighted throughout the training.
Day 1 workshop will meet the criteria for the newly mandated equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) licensing requirement.
DAY 1 Learning Objectives:
1. Participants will understand the difference between refugees, asylees, and immigrants.
2. Participants will be able to identify cultural considerations when providing mental health services to New Americans.
3. Participants will learn the four tiers associated with Trauma Systems Therapy for Refugee Youth (TST-R).
4. Participants will gain knowledge regarding the Western-defined mental health diagnoses most assigned to refugees .
5. Participants will learn how to work with interpreters when providing services.
6. Participants will understand how to implement the Chronic Traumatic Stress Treatment (CTS-T) and the NESTT mobile mental health application that accompanies the Treatment.
Day 2 - Saturday, November 12, 2022
Title: Moving Beyond Self-Care: Vicarious Trauma and Resilience
Saturday Workshop - 3 CE Credits
This three-hour training is for psychologists, social workers, and mental health professionals interested in gaining knowledge and clinical skills when working with refugees, immigrants, and asylees. Some experience with trauma-informed care is useful but not necessary. The training includes a combination of didactics, discussion, and activities. Cultural considerations when providing services are highlighted throughout the training. Conference participants will review vicarious trauma and resilience emphasizing strategies to move beyond self-care when working with traumatized populations. Strategies for trauma stewardship will also be reviewed. Finally, conference participants will learn about the Multidisciplinary Assessment Profile (MAP) and an overview of conducting a psychological asylum evaluation.
Day 2 Learning Objectives:
1. Participants will gain knowledge regarding the impact of vicarious trauma.
2. Participants will learn self-care strategies when working with refugees and survivors of torture and gain knowledge about trauma stewardship and vicarious resilience.
3. Participants will understand the components of the Multidisciplinary Assessment Profile (MAP) and learn an overview of how to conduct psychological asylum evaluations.
ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Karen Fondacaro, Ph.D.
Clinical Professor Emerita/Director
Karen Fondacaro is Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychological Science at the University of Vermont. Over the past 35 years, Dr. Fondacaro’s clinical work and research has focused on the mental health of survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and political conflict. In 2007, Dr. Fondacaro established Connecting Cultures, a clinical science program designed for the needs of refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers. In 2009, she co-founded NESTT (New England Survivors of Torture and Trauma). These programs collaborate with numerous community organizations and provide New Americans from over 30 countries of origin with psychological, legal, and physical therapy services, and medical referrals. Dr. Fondacaro has been the Principal Investigator on federal grants (e.g., NIH-SBIR, Agency of Human Services-ORR). She conducts numerous national and international presentations, a Tedx talk, and has published peer-reviewed scholarly articles on refugee well-being. In 2020, Dr. Fondacaro and the Connecting Cultures/NESTT programs received the Regional Kellogg Foundation Community Engagement Scholarship Award.
.
