Description
This webinar, held on May 15, 2025, was sponsored by the Office of Refugee Resettlement and facilitated by the National Capacity Building Project. It features our partners from the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT), Richard F. Mollica, MD, MAR and Eugene F. Augusterfer, LCSW. Richard and Eugene discuss how over 47.2 million children have been displaced by war trauma and disasters globally (UNICEF, 2024). HPRT with its international partners have been addressing the trauma-informed care schooling of highly traumatized school aged children. HPRT with their Ukrainian partners recently completed a mental health-education evaluation of 3,000 primary school children displaced by the war.
Learning Objectives
After attending this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Learn to apply with refugee and mainstream populations the Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) schooling of traumatized children.
- Learn to use and apply TIC instruments in an educational setting for the reduction of anxiety, stress, and depression.
- Be able to offer traumatized children and families HOPE.
- Be able to offer teachers and parents self-care.
- Learn the criteria for the referral of children to professional mental health care, i.e., referral to school psychologists and primary care practitioners.
- Learn to appreciate and implement the HPRT motto: “There is no healing without beauty”.
Target Audience
This webinar is intended for staff of torture rehabilitation programs that are funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement and/or are members of the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs, SASIC Program staff, as well as others who provide services to survivors of torture.
Resources:
- Hope: Trauma-Informed Care Schooling for Displaced Children PowerPoint
- HPRT’s Self-Care Website
- Animal Metaphors
- Merrick MT, Ford DC, Ports KA, et al. Vital Signs: Estimated Proportion of Adult Health Problems Attributable to Adverse Childhood Experiences and Implications for Prevention — 25 States, 2015–2017. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2019;68:999-1005. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6844e1
- CDC ACE Study page https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/acestudy/ and V.J Felitti and R. F. Anda, “the Relationship of Adverse Childhood Experiences to Adult Health, Well Being, Social Function, and Health Care,” from The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, September 2010).
- Ellis, Wendy R, and William H Dietz. “A New Framework for Addressing Adverse Childhood and Community Experiences: The Building Community Resilience Model.” Academic pediatrics vol. 17,7S (2017): S86-S93. doi:10.1016/j.acap.2016.12.011
- The Sanctuary Model
- Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE Study)
- The Four Rs of Trauma Informed Care: Grossman S, Cooper Z, Buxton H, Hendrickson S, Lewis-O’Connor A, Stevens J, Wong LY, Bonne S. Trauma-informed care: recognizing and resisting re-traumatization in health care. Trauma Surg Acute Care Open. 2021 Dec 20;6(1):e000815. doi: 10.1136/tsaco-2021-000815. PMID: 34993351; PMCID: PMC8689164.
- Stone Soup, the fable. First written a published by 1947, Marcia Brown’s retelling of a French folktale is a picture book classic. However, it has been translated and adapted to many languages and cultures. Scholars believe that the fable narrative predates the version published in 1947. Dr. Mollica and I adapted the version we presented in the webinar to fit our culture. (The book by Marcia Brown is available on Amazon.)
- LUDA – LISTENING…UNDERSTANDING with DEEP APPRECIATION. LUDA was created by Dr. Franco Paparo, MD, who was a famous Italian psychiatrist and close colleague of Heinz Kohut (the founder of Self-Psychology) and cherished mentor of HPRT. The important concept of LUDA as a foundation of importance of empathy in the therapeutic relationship was conveyed to us at HPRT verbally and not published. We ask that those who might use LUDA verbally or in writing give credit to Franco Paparo, MD.
Presenters:
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Dr. Richard F. Mollica , Director, Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT)
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Eugene F. Augusterfer, LCSW , Deputy Director, Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT)