Building Awareness, Skills & Knowledge: 

A Community Response to the Torture Survivor Experience

The National Partnership for Community Training, in collaboration with Lutheran Social Services South Dakota, will be hosting a training from September 10-11 in Sioux Falls, SD for providers who serve the immigrant, refugee, asylee, and asylum-seeking populations.

Many professionals, such as social workers, teachers, doctors, nurses and mental health clinicians, may not have been trained in, and are generally unaware of, the specific issues, treatments and referral needs that survivors of torture can pose.

This training will be led by a nationally-recognized expert in the torture treatment field from the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture and joined by other experts. 

The objectives of this training are:

1. To offer mainstream providers the best & promising practices, knowledge and tools needed
   to work effectively with survivors of torture
2. To assist participants in identifying the health, mental health, psychosocial, and spiritual problems
   associated with the experience of trauma
3. To learn trauma-informed assessment, intervention, and referral strategies
4. To learn, practice, talk about, teach and promote stress reduction techniques.
5. To identify benefits of group work in healing from torture
6. To begin designing a group session unique to your clients' needs and program's resources
7. To introduce the theories and models pertaining to substance abuse
8. To identify, diagnose, refer, and treat substance abuse within the refugee and torture survivor community 

Professionals working in Medical, Psychiatric, Psychological, Immigration Law, Social Work, Case Management Education and Spiritual disciplines as well as other interested individuals are invited to attend.