Each survivor works with a team of specialists who provide:

• Medical treatment, including psychiatric services and referrals to specialists as needed
• Nursing care to help monitor physical conditions and facilitate referrals to specialists
• Psychotherapy with a psychologist, marriage and family therapist or clinical social worker
• Social services to connect survivors with other organizations and basic needs, and to provide case management to reduce the need for more intensive interventions such as hospitalization
• Massage, occupational and physical therapies to increase mobility and relieve physical pain

For survivors who don’t speak English, interpreters play an integral role in the healing process.

Stages of healing
Torture is an attack on all aspects of a person's life. Its effects reach beyond the individual to the family and the community. As part of the holistic healing approach, survivors in Minnesota receive individual and group counseling. The counseling addresses individual situations while helping survivors learn how to trust and rebuild relationships for a more fulfilling life.

CVT’s healing teams guide survivors through three stages of healing:

1. Safety and Stabilization: re-establishing health and trust; discussing legal resources and processes; ensuring clients have housing, clothing, food and medical care.
2. Grief and Mourning: working through what happened.
3. Reconnection: getting back to community and life purpose and developing and repairing relationships with friends and family.

Support Services
When a survivor is ready to reconnect with the community, volunteers provide important support services, such as:

• Teaching survivors how to read a bus schedule and navigate public transportation
• Tutoring survivors in English
• Accompanying survivors on visits to a museum, library, concert, coffee shop or grocery store.

Download our brochure Becoming A Client at CVT.