Laurie Bangs is a retired high school English teacher who taught abroad for the past several years. She now volunteers for CVT as a bus tutor and a befriender.

In our international projects, our healing work for torture and war trauma survivors is conducted through group counseling. Groups typically meet for 10 weeks. This is the eighth in a series of posts by Veronica Laveta as she follows the counseling group cycle in Jordan. Veronica Laveta is CVT’s clinical advisor for the Jordan project.

Read other entries in the series.

___________________________

Refuge: Caring for Survivors of Torture is an insightful one-hour documentary about the experiences of torture survivors and those who provide care to them. It highlights the need for appropriate, sensitive care for all survivors who seek refuge in the United States. Interviews with a number of survivors as well as professionals working at torture rehabilitation centers – including CVT – humanize and demystify the process of healing after extreme violence.Producer/director Ben Achtenberg spoke to us about his film. Ben is the owner and project director of the Refuge Media Project, in Boston, Massachusetts.

Annie Sovcik, Esq., CVT's Director of the Washington Office, writes on the need to expand mental health services for refugees and survivors of humanitarian emergencies worldwide. CVT is the co-founder of the Global Mental Health Advocacy Working Group.