August Issue

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In this Issue

	PSOT Staff and Clients Gear Up for the Fall
	Dr. Eric Green Empowers Ugandan School Children Through Photography
	PSOT Completes Pilot Program for Refugee Resettlement Agencies

In Other News

The NYU Center for Health and Human Rights and the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture will host "Healthcare for Detained Immigrants" a conference on medical/legal collaboration. September 23rd, 2008 from 9:00-4:30.

Location: NYU Medical Center: Snow Dining Room, 550 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Enter NYU Medical Center and ask for directions to the Faculty Dining Room. Our meeting is in the Snow Dining Room, which is accessed from the Faculty Dining Room.

Please RSVP (with number attending) to homer.venters@med.nyu.edu or 646‐734‐5994.

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PSOT Staff and Clients Gear Up for the Fall

PSOT is happy to welcome a new round of interns, externs and volunteers this year! We are also excited to host two new post-doctoral fellows, Dr. Eric Green and Dr. Tama Lane. For more details on Dr. Green's international research projects see below. We would also like to take this opportunity to make a time-sensitive appeal for our clients' children. Though they are eager to go back to school, purchasing basic school supplies is a challenge. Please let us know if you can donate new or gently used backpacks to help start the new year on the right foot! Contact our Development/Communications Coordinator, Nadja Michel-Herf at nadja.michel-herf@nyumc.org or 212 994 7173 if you'd like to help. All donations are tax-deductible. You can also help by joining our new communities on Change.org and Facebook (see links to the left)! Write a testimonial, make a commitment, forward to a friend, and help us spread the word about survivors of torture in New York City.

Dr. Eric Green Empowers Ugandan School Children Through Photography

Dr. Eric Green recently joined PSOT as a postdoctoral research fellow. He comes to us from a doctoral program in Clinical-Community Psychology at the University of South Carolina. For his dissertation, Eric studied communities transitioning out of war and forced migration in northern Uganda. As part of a larger study on well-being and internal displacement, Eric conducted a participatory documentary photography project with 12 P7 students (roughly equivalent to 7th grade in the U.S. educational system) living in a large internally displaced persons camp where Eric also lived.

For several months in 2007, the students captured images of life in their schools, camp community, and newly reforming villages. Eric joined his local counterpart and the students at the end of each week to talk about the images and issues in the community. This method, known as Photovoice, is designed to empower participants to create change in their lives and in the lives of their communities.

To learn more about this project or to support these students as they transition to secondary school with the help of proceeds from the sale of their artwork, please visit
www.displacedcommunities.org/photovoice.html and click on the gallery link.
 

PSOT Completes Pilot Program for Refugee Resettlement Agencies

For the past year, the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture (PSOT) has worked hand in hand with the Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM) to assist refugee resettlement agencies across the country to cope with the mental health issues and challenges their client populations may be facing. We have just completed the initial pilot program for this joint endeavor.

EMM is an umbrella organization that coordinates activities for more than 30 different resettlement agencies nationwide. Dr. Hawthorne Smith jump started the program by presenting to EMM's resettlement directors last summer at their annual meeting in Houston, TX. After EMM OK'd the project and picked three agencies that would receive direct trainings, a genral training was set up for last December in Atlanta. Subsequently, PSOT staff have conducted trainings for resettlement agencies in Minneapolis, MN; New Bern, NC; and Syracuse, NY. PSOT is now developing a curriculum based on these trainings that will be available for other resttlement agencies within the EMM network and elsewhere.

In addition to Dr. Smith, Carrie Wollmershauser, C.S.W., Dr. Adeyinka Akinsulure-Smith, Dr. Kate Porterfield, and Dr. Maile O'Hara provided the core trainings. Carol Prendergast and Danielle Allen helped to facilitate the logistics with thier EMM counterpart, Michelle Gonzalez. The trainings have been well-received, and we are hoping to expand upon the program next year.