Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration

CMHS Consumer Affairs E-News
June 14, 2007, Vol. 07-98

Conference Yields Peer Specialists for Torture Survivors

The first five graduates of an innovative peer companion training were honored in May at the first National Conference of Vietnamese Trauma Survivors and Seniors in Fairfax, VA.

The conference, sponsored in part by SAMHSA, was hosted by Boat People SOS in collaboration with the George Mason University Center for the Advancement of Public Health.

Peer companions are trained using the Survivors of Torture Empowerment Program (STEP), designed to serve as a "re-education camp" for Vietnamese survivors and their families who have become U.S. residents under the U.S. Humanitarian Operation Program. Under STEP, local community leaders and volunteers are trained to provide psycho-social support to survivors, locate and connect social services to those survivors, and develop survivors' capacity to contribute to the well being of their families.

The curriculum is designed to be culture-sensitive, responsive to trainees' feedback and needs, and involves more practice than lectures.

2007 National Conference of Vietnamese Trauma Survivors
http://www.machsong.org/STEP2007/index.html

From CMHS's National Center for Trauma Informed Care: http://samhsa.gov/nctic/.

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The Center for Mental Health Services is a component of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, United States Department of Health and Human Services.