Richard F. Mollica, M.D., M.A.R. is the Director of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT) of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He received his medical degree from the University of New Mexico and completed his Psychiatry residency at Yale Medical School. While at Yale he also trained in epidemiology and received a philosophy degree from the Divinity School. In 1981, Dr. Mollica co-founded the Indochinese Psychiatry Clinic (IPC). Over the past two decades HPRT and IPC have pioneered the mental health care of survivors of mass violence and torture. HPRT/IPC's clinical model has been replicated throughout the world.
Dr. Mollica has received numerous awards for his work and is the author of the newly published book Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World. In 1993, he received the human rights award from the American Psychiatric Association. In 1996, the American Orthopsychiatry Association presented him with the Max Hymen Award. In 2000 he was awarded a visiting professorship to Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, for his contributions during the Kobe earthquake. In 2001 he was selected as a Fulbright New Century scholar. Under Dr. Mollica's direction, HPRT conducts training, policy and research activities for traumatized populations around the world. HPRT's screening instruments are considered a gold standard in the field and have been widely translated into over thirty languages. HPRT's scientific work has helped place mental health issues at the center of the recovery of post-conflict societies.
Dr. Mollica has published over 160 scientific articles. He and his team over the past 30 years have cared for over 10,000 survivors of extreme violence worldwide. Through his research, clinical work and trainings he is recognized as a leader in the treatment and rehabilitation of traumatized people and their communities.
James Lavelle, LICSW, is the Director of International Programs and Community Organizing for the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT). As Co-Founder of HPRT, he has spent the past 30 years working as a clinician, educator, researcher, and community organizer helping to pioneer the field of refugee mental health. With his HPRT colleagues and their in-country partners, James participated in innovative trainings of primary-care physicians and mental health professionals and paraprofessionals in Thailand, Cambodia, Croatia and Bosnia. He has also worked with his HPRT team in conducting major epidemiological research in these societies.
James also co-founded the world famous Indochinese Psychiatry Clinic(IPC) in Boston in 1981 with Dr. Richard Mollica after starting his career in 1978 as Director of the Indochinese Refugee Mental Health Program sponsored by a group called Research for Social Change Inc. IPC has morphed since the year 2000 into a new and improved clinical service for individuals and families entitled “A Statewide Network of Local Care for Survivors of Torture,” based at Lynn Community Health Center (funded by the Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement). He advises “Always be a clinician.”
James is currently active in a training consultation in Peru with HPRT’s collaborating center, the University of San Marcos Medical School. He is a member of the international faculty of the “Mastery in Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery Certificate Program.” This program incorporates lecture-based training held in the cities of Porano and Orvieto, Italy followed by five months of continued learning on the Internet, aimed at developing a “Community of Practice” of faculty and trainees. This unique training is the major vehicle for the dissemination of the Mental Health Action Plan and Book of Best Practices generated through HPRT’s policy initiative: Project 1 Billion.
James Lavelle, LICSW, has conducted hundreds of trainings and workshops and has co-authored scores of publications. With a little help from his HPRT friends, he has had the honor of offering clinical care to over 10,000 survivors of war, torture and violence. He remains pathologically optimistic due to the fact that he thoroughly enjoys working toward world peace with the “Best and the Brightest” over the past three decades. He cautions however: “We’ve met a lot of zany people along the way.”
Svang Tor is a Senior Clinician and Consultant/Liaison for HPRT. She has over twenty years of experience in the field of refugee mental health. Ms. Tor, a survivor of the Khmer Rouge killing fields, began working as a Senior Mental Health Specialist for the Indochinese Psychiatry Clinic in 1987. Between 1994 and 1999, she developed the curriculum for and helped to implement training projects in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and on the Thai-Cambodian border. The purpose was to train primary care physicians and counselors as mental health providers, and teach them how to train other doctors.
Working with Dr. Mollica with the assistance of Radcliffe's Schlesinger Library, Ms. Tor recruited, interviewed and transcribed the oral histories of ten Cambodian-American women and a group of Cambodian-American teenagers for HPRT's "Courage and Resiliency" project. She also co-directs the HPRT shadow puppet project, and is collaborating on the production of a Cambodian comic book. Ms. Tor has received several awards for her work, including the Unsung Heroes Award from the Healthy Boston Coalition, a Certificate of Recognition from Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, and a Research Recognition Award from the Society for Family Therapy and Research. Currently she is overseeing HPRT's "Statewide Network of Local Care to Survivors of Torture" (IPC+) project in the Cambodian communities of Lynn and Lowell.
Kathia Kirschner is originally from Sao Paulo, Brazil. She has received her Bachelor of Science degree in Human Development with a concentration in Inequality from Cornell University in May, 2008. She spent 6 months in Bamako, Mali, doing field research on the psychological effects of colonization and later completed an Honors Thesis on identity reconstruction as a result of acculturation in the United States. She has always been interested in the field of psychological trauma and issues related to immigration, which has led her to work with immigrants in New York City and do volunteer work around the world. Kathia has been working as a research assistant at the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma since July, 2008.
Sam Catherine Johnston, B.Arts, McGill University 1999, Ed. M. Harvard Graduate School of Education, 2004, Ed. D, 2009 Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Sam's research is focused on the use of the community of practice for peer-based learning. Sam specializes in the use of new media and technology to foster peer-based learning. Since 2005, Sam has worked as an educational consultant to the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma working on the design,delivery, and evaluation of the HPRT Mastery Certificate in Global Mental Health: Trauma and Recovery. Her doctoral thesis was an evaluation of the learning outcomes for students in the GMH Program based on their level of engagement in the community of practice, the learning paradigm chosen for the GMH Program. Sam is also a senior associate and distance educator at the Center for Social Innovation where she works on professional development for homelessness services providers. Sam has taught adult literacy, English as a Foreign Language and worked as a teaching fellow for graduate courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Education that focus on the use of new media in education. She has worked as a consultant in education facilities and resource planning in Canada and abroad.
Harry Schnur is originally from Shaker Heights, Ohio. In May 2008 he graduated from Bowdoin College with a BA in religion. Thanks to a Bowdoin grant, he spent the summer of 2007 volunteering at a maternal and child health organization called Neary Khmer in Cambodia. This experience encouraged him to continue studying the Khmer language and become involved with the local Khmer community in Portland, Maine. He wrote his senior thesis on the interaction between a rural Maine community and a Khmer Buddhist group as the latter applied for a zoning permit. Harry's persistent interest in public health, social capital and cross-cultural care has led him to work at Lynn Community Health Center as a community health worker. He has worked under supervision of HPRT since August 2008.
GLOBAL MENTAL HEALTH: TRAUMA AND RECOVERY CERTIFICATE PROGRAM
FACULTY 2008- 2009
Dr. Ed K. S. Wang Dr. Ed K.S. Wang is a member of the National Experts on Cultural Competence of the National Technical Assistance Center for State Mental Health Planning and a consultant of the National Center for Cultural Competence. Since 2000, he has been a faculty of the Training Institute & Policy Academy of the National Technical Assistance Center for Children's Mental Health at the Georgetown University Child Development Center. As a clinical instructor of the Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, his teaching focus is on clinical competence in working with culturally diverse clients. He is a board member of the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association, and a member of the National Advisory Council, Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Wang is the Director of Multicultural Affairs, Massachusetts Department of Mental Health. He received a number of State Senate and House of Representatives Official Citations for his public service and the Commonwealth’s Citation for Outstanding Performance in the creation and leadership of the Cultural Competence Action Team.
Solvig Ekblad, Licensed psychologist, PhD at KI (1986), associate professor in transcultural psychology (1992) at KI and research group leader, Migration and Health at the Stress Research Institute, Stockholm University. Her present research projects are performed in close collaboration between the Stress Research Institute, Stockholm university, Stockholm County Council and Karolinska Institutet. Her activities include applied research in addition to education and training, consulting, documentation and information. She is involved in the KIRT-programme (supervision of foreign PhD students). Between 1997-2002 she co-chaired (prof Derrick Silove) the International Committee on Refugees and Other Migrants, of the World Federation for Mental Health and were consultants for UNHCR From 2005 and onwards she is a member of KI:s ethical council. She is one of the core faculty in a Master Course in Global Mental Health. She is a member of the Scientific Council at the Rehabilitation and Research Center for Torture Victims (RCT), Copenhagen, Denmark. She collaborates with two foreign adjunct professors at Karolinska Institutet, prof Richard Mollica, USA and prof Derrick Silove, Australia.
Robert Brooks, PhD, is Senior Research Officer, Centre for Population Mental Health, and Senior Lecturer School of Psychiatry University of New South Wales: A history of psychology work in child protection, and mental health, applied and academic work. Overall the focus of my work is in research methods (quantitative and qualitative) and statistics. The broad content areas include trauma anger and violence, and working with Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples on creating safer communities.
Franco Paparo, MD, trained in Neurology and psychiatry and was assistant Professor at University of Rome La Sapienza. He has been for many years a full member of the Group-analytic Society (London) and training group-analyst in Rome. He is associated member of the International Psychoanalytic Society. He was a pioneer in the psychiatric reform in Italy as Director of Unit 17 for severely disturbed patients. In 1980 he met Heinz Kohot and introduced self-psychology in Italy through his numerous translations and lectures: He is member of the International Council of Psychoanalytic Self-psychology and co-founder in Italy of the new school of self-psychology and relational analysis Isipse. He has also served as a senior consultant to HPRT since its origins in 1981.
Giovanni Muscettola, MD, is Chairman of the Department of Neuroscience at the University Medical School of Napoli Federico II in Napoli, Italy. Dr. Muscettola has been a full professor of psychiatry at the University Medical School in Napoli since 1996. Additionally, he is the author of more than 100 publications in the fields of biological psychiatry and psychopharmacology.
Massimo Ammaniti, MD, a child psychiatrist & psychoanalyst, currently serves as a professor of
Developmental Psychopathology and chairman of the Faculty of Infant and
Adolescent Clinical Psychology at University La Sapienza, in Rome, Italy. Additionally, he serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the World Association of Infant Mental Health. He is a major advisor to the Italian Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Giampaolo Nicolais, PhD, Clinical psychologist, is Associate Professor of Dynamic Psychology, University of Molise, Italy.
He received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, where he also completed his postgraduate education with a Psy.D. training in child, adolescent and adult clinical psychology and psychotherapy, and a Ph.D. in clinical child psychology.
He’s been practicing for a decade as psychologist and psychotherapist in the areas of developmental psychopathology and child abuse and neglect.
His main research interests are in the field of developmental psychopathology, attachment, child trauma and its intergenerational transmission.
Mary Petevi, MA, Psychology. Spécialisation clinical psychology. Former assistant professor in cognitive psychology, Geneva University, in the team of J. Piaget. Former “Snr. Resettlement Officer for Vulnerable Groups and Mental Health”, in UNHCR for 30 years, 6 of which “WHO Global Coordinator, Mental Health in Conflict and Disaster”. Undertook 80 official field missions, in 60 countries,-all continents- in emergency and protracted humanitarian crises. Published 80 official UN reports. Worked in development of normative - implementation instruments on: policy, strategies, programmes, monitoring, evaluation, physical/mental/human rights protection, care/rehabilitation, needs assessments, fundraising, coordination, resettlement, training, States and NGOs negotiations, conflict resolution, EU Stability Pact-Balkans, media relations, etc,.. Developed with international cooperation: “WHO, DECLARATION OF COOPERATION, Mental Health of Refugees, Displaced and Other Populations Affected by Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations” and “WHO, TOOL Rapid Assessment of Mental Health Needs of Refugees Displaced and Other Populations Affected by Conflict and Post-Conflict Situations”. Organised/participated in many conferences. Visiting professor of many universities. Published extensively alone and with others. Close collaborator of HPRT.
Luca Rosi, is a psychologist and sociologist, an expert in the field of residential training and e-learning in Public Health with particular reference to Human Resources Management and Communication Skills. In addition to his actual role as researcher for Istituto Superiore di Sanità, the Italian National Institute of Health, he has an active career as project manager and project evaluator for several for profit and non–profit organisations at national and international levels. He has performed professional collaboration with Universities and Academic Organisations at national and international levels. Through the years, he has published widely on Health Organization’s Management key topics and has preformed significant living and working experiences in many Countries, with particular reference to EU Countries, Middle East, North Africa and South Africa, Canada, United States of America, Former Soviet Union Countries, Former Yugoslavia Countries and Australia.
Natale Losi,PhD, family psychotherapist, medical anthropologist and sociologist, has extensive professional experience in various countries, having worked in Africa (Mali and Ethiopia); in the Balkans (Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo, Serbia); Switzerland (Mâitre d’Enseignement et Recherche at the University of Geneva); Italy, in Milan and in Perugia as professor at the university. He is presently the Head of the Psychosocial and Cultural Integration Unit at the International Organization for Migration. Through his clinical and academic experience he has developed the ethno-systemic-narrative approach that includes memory and narration, especially within migrant communities, as a fundamental tool of cultural integration and resilience. Such ideas are discussed in his recent titles that include: Lives Elsewhere, Migration and Psychic Malaise. Karnac, London, 2006; Archives of Memory, supporting traumatized communities through narration and remembrance, (Ed), IOM, Geneva, 2001.
Maria Bosio, is a free-lance journalist and filmmaker with over 25 years of experience in directing and screenwriting for documentaries, fiction film and advertisement. She has worked free-lance for RAI-TV (Rai Radiotelevisione Italiana), Mediaset (Canale 5) and Radio1 RAI, directing and writing over 50 programs on political, social and cultural topics. She had worked with HPRT in 2004-2005 on the film entitled “Sowing Seeds that Heal the Sorrow.”
Susan Meffert, M.D., M.P.H. is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is a recipient of the UCSF Global Health Faculty Burke Award, delivered through UCSF Global Health Sciences (GHS) and works closely with GHS in the development of a Program on Violence and Trauma and global health education.
Dr. Meffert has been working in the field of global health since 1998, as a student, clinician and researcher. She conducts Randomized Controlled Clinical Trials (RCTs) to develop of local standards of mental health care for populations recovering from intrastate conflict or natural disaster. Central to her work is the use of ethnographically informed needs assessments, carefully adapted measures of mental health and intervention efficacy, and delivery of mental health care by local personnel. She has worked with populations in Haiti, Russia, Nepal, India, the Middle East, Africa and China. One of her areas of concentration is East Africa, having spent 10 years in clinical care and/or research with the Sudanese population.
Dr. Meffert is trained in Forensic Psychiatry and has expertise in the intersection between mental health and law. Her forensic focus concerns the mental health of asylum seekers/refugees, vicarious trauma among human rights attorneys and mental health aspects of transitional justice. She teaches on these topics in the University of California Berkeley Boalt School of Law International Human Rights Clinic and as part of a UCSF-University of California Hastings College of Law collaboration for conducting asylum-seeker evaluations.
The Reverend Frederick J. Streets was appointed Chaplain of Yale University and Senior Pastor of the Church of Christ in Yale (UCC) in 1992. A native of Chicago, Illinois, Jerry (the nickname he prefers to be called) is the first African Amerian and Baptist to hold this position. He is also a member of the faculty at the Yale Divinity School and of the clinical social work faculty at the Yale Child Study Center. His research, publication, teaching and lecture interests are in pastoral theology, institutional leadership and development, and religion and social welfare. He holds the Master of Divinity degree from Yale University and masters and doctoral degrees from Wurzweiler School of Social Work, Yeshiva University, New York. Prior to becoming the University Chaplain at Yale, Jerry was the Pastor of the Mount Aery Baptist Church in Bridgeport, Connecticut from 1975-1992.
Reverend Streets is a senior consultant with the Harvard University Program in Refugee Trauma. In Bosnia, he has worked with refugees, physicians, religious and civic leaders, and members of the social work faculty at the University of Sarajevo in dealing with that region's post-war spiritual and psychosocial needs. He was a member of a delegation sponsored by the CT Conference of the United Church of Christ and the Mennonite Church that recently visited with religious and civil leaders in Columbia, South America. He joined over 100 scholars and professionals of non-profit and non-governmental organizations convened in Buenos Aires, Argentina this past October to promote greater understanding of the non-profit sectors relationship to higher education and peace making in the western hemisphere.
David C. Henderson, MD, is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the Medical Director of the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma. He is also Associate Director of the Schizophrenia Program, Director of Schizophrenia, Diabetes, and Weight Reduction Research, and Director of the Clozapine Program at Massachusetts General Hospital and Erich Lindemann Mental Health Center. Former Coordinator of Psychopharmacology and Adjunct Faculty, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr. Henderson directs the Cultural Psychiatry Seminar and is the Chair of the Diversity Committee, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Black Psychiatrists of America.
Dr. Henderson earned his medical degree at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, followed by an internship at Saint Elizabeth's Hospital in Boston and completed a residency in Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital. He has participated in several projects in areas of mass violence including Rwanda, Cambodia, East Timor, Bosnia, and New York City. His research interest focuses on the medical and psychiatric consequences of mass violence, primary care physician confidence in treating psychiatric disorders, the impact of ethnicity and culture on psychiatry, and psychopharmacological and antipsychotic agents in the treatment of schizophrenia in addition to endocrine disorders, diabetes mellitus, hypothalamus and weight gain.
He has lectured at grand rounds nationally and internationally, including MGH, as well as CME Courses on topics such as psychosis, antipsychotic agents, psychopharmacology, ethnopsychopharmacology, and multicultural medicine and psychiatry. Dr. Henderson also developed, coordinates, and lectures in the MGH- McLean Diversity seminar for PGY III residents and second year psychology interns.
