This session will focus on the needs of survivors of torture and other traumatic experiences and the corresponding multidisciplinary healing services provided by the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) in Minnesota. There will be a particular focus on the impacts of torture on children and adolescents, which can include the interruption of normal developmental processes, as well as damage to the integrity of the family and community. An additional thread in the presentation will be focused on ICE’s recent Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, which has retraumatized communities and interrupted their healing journeys.
Learning objectives:
- Discuss the impacts of torture on primary and secondary survivors, with a focus on children.
- Provide an overview of CVT services in Minnesota and how needs and services changed during and after ICE’s Operation Metro Surge.
Bios:
Dr. Paul Orieny, Ph.D., LMFT Dr. Paul Orieny works as a senior clinical advisor for mental health at the Center for Victims of Torture, where he is lead for the International Services Clinical Advisor team. He supervises field psychotherapists and provides clinical oversight to CVT’s international clinical programs operations in Kenya and Ethiopia, as well as serving in this role previously to programs in Jordan, Uganda and Zimbabwe. He has been in this role since 2011, and prior to this worked for over five years as a psychotherapist at CVT’s U.S. clinic, working with torture survivors from Africa, Asia, Europe and Middle East. Dr. Orieny holds a Ph.D. in Family Social Science with Marriage & Family Therapy specialization from the University of Minnesota.
Alyce Eaton, MHR, Alyce Eaton has worked as a program evaluator for capacity development at CVT since January 2023. She leads monitoring, evaluation and learning across a variety of CVT programs, and previously managed the internal evaluation of the international capacity development project, Helping Survivors Heal (HSH). She has supported the Professional Quality of Life (ProQOL) tool for assessing compassion satisfaction and fatigue since its first days at CVT. She previously worked at CVT from 2014-2018, building and monitoring client data systems for CVT’s direct client services in a number of countries and settings, and has additionally worked as a public health evaluation consultant and an organizational researcher. Alyce holds a BA in Mathematics/Statistics and Political Science from Grinnell College and a Master’s in Human Rights, with a concentration in Research Methods and Evaluation, from the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
Curriculum
- 1 Section
- 1 Lesson
- Lifetime
