CVT’s Healing Hearts program uses a holistic, team-based approach to bring specialized care to clients from the Karen State in Myanmar (Burma). The program began as Healing Hearts, Creating Hope: Exploring the Efficacy of Integrated Mental Health Services for New Refugees, CVT’s five-year collaborative project with M Health Fairview Clinic-Roselawn and M Health Fairview Clinic-Bethesda to provide culturally competent, on-site mental health services to Karen refugees. The project completed the research portion of the program in 2017. It has continued as an ongoing mental health services program where CVT clinicians provide targeted case management and psychotherapy in coordination with primary care staff to support refugee patients at these two clinics. In our years of care, we have found the majority of clients are women.

The program also provides community-level activities in collaboration with community partners.

A major study by the Healing Hearts team was published at BMC Family Practice journal in 2020, demonstrating the positive impacts of CVT’s care. When CVT extended care to refugee survivors of torture in primary care, clients saw significant improvements in mental health symptoms, including, “. . . depression, PTSD, anxiety, and pain symptoms and in social functioning at all time points, with magnitude of improvement increasing over time.” Read the study here.

In 2019, Healing Hearts published its comprehensive clinical toolkit titled, “Improving Well Being for Refugees in Primary Care: A Toolkit for Providers.” This manual gives providers the necessary tools to improve treatment plans for patients who have lived through traumatic experiences.