Integrated Health – Mental Health and Primary Care Collaboration
Date: April 21, 2025
Time: 12:00 – 1:00 PM EST
Session Description
Torture and all other forms of human rights violations are highly associated with medical, mental health and spiritual problems over the entire life span. Special attention is needed to address the medical problems of family members, particularly women and children. Women’s health is of special concern because of the medical, mental health and spiritual impact of the violence that is specifically targeted towards them. Children and teenagers may suffer from direct torture, in addition to resulting physical and mental health problems of displacement and homelessness.
Survivors of torture (SOT) providers can play a key role in offering the torture survivors an integrated holistic approach to health care and health promotion by working closely with specialists from different fields (i.e. primary health care, obstetrics and women’s health, and pediatrics).
Every torture survivor and their family members need primary health care. The SOT provider’s role in communicating with primary health care is essential. Research reveals the maximum health care benefits result from co-locating behavioral health, primary health care, and social services. To support these services, the HPRT 11-point toolkit has been effective worldwide in offering a science based, culturally valid system of care.
Learning Objectives
After attending this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Understand and apply the proven scientific importance of a co-located primary health care, behavioral health, social service system of care.
- Learn the importance of establishing regularly scheduled communication between primary care health teams and the SOT treatment team to monitor and improve.
- Learn and use the HPRT 11-Point Toolkit and teach the primary health care team how to use the 11-Point Toolkit.
- Top Priority: Learn how to elicit the torture survivor’s trauma story and teach this method to primary health care providers.
- Practice and teach self-care; engage primary care practitioners in BALINT GROUPS.
Target Audience
This session is designed for providers working with survivors of torture populations across disciplines, including legal services, social work, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, and case management.
Meet the Presenters
Richard F. Mollica, M.D., M.A.R
Richard F. Mollica, MD, MAR is the Director of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT) at Massachusetts General Hospital and a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He received his medical degree from the University of New Mexico and completed his Psychiatry residency at Yale Medical School. While at Yale, he also trained in epidemiology and received a philosophy degree from the Divinity School. In 1981, Dr. Mollica co-founded the Indochinese Psychiatry Clinic (IPC). For over the past four decades, HPRT/ IPC have pioneered the mental health care of survivors of mass violence and torture in the U.S. and abroad. HPRT/IPC’s clinical model has been replicated throughout the world.
Dr. Mollica has received numerous awards for his work: In 1993, he received the Human Rights Award from the American Psychiatric Association. In 1996, the American Orthopsychiatry Association presented him with the Max Hymen Award. In 2000, he was awarded a visiting professorship to Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, for his contributions to assisting survivors of the Kobe earthquake. In 2001, he was selected as a Fulbright New Century scholar. In 2022, Dr. Mollica received the Lifetime Achievement Award from Harvard Medical School. IN 2023, he received the Lux Veritas Award from the Yale Divenity School.
Dr. Mollica is currently active in clinical work, research, and the development of a Global Mental Health curriculum, focusing on trauma and recovery. The Harvard Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery certificate program was the first of its kind as training in global mental health and post-conflict/disaster care.
Eugene F. Augusterfer, LCSW
Eugene F. Augusterfer, LCSW is the Deputy Director and Director of Telemedicine at the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT), Massachusetts General Hospital, Department of Psychiatry.
His training includes Psychology, Clinical Social Work, Developmental Psychology, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, Group Psychotherapy, and Systems Theory and Practice. He has been a lecturer at Georgetown University School of Public Health, and co-founder of the World Bank Mental Health and Psychosocial Working Group, a senior advisor to the World Economic Forum, Wellness Initiative, and the United Nations Development Programme on disaster response. He is a former U.S. Air Force Mental Health Officer where he received training and experience working with all levels of trauma victims.
His experience includes post-disaster mental health care on-site experience in Haiti, Japan, Lebanon (during the Syrian war), Italy (post-earthquakes), Ukraine, and domestically, New Orleans, post Hurricane Katrina, the Pentagon, post September 11, 2001, terror attacks. He co-led a project in Ukraine to identify the mental health needs of school children in the active Ukrainian war zone.
Who should attend?
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.