Hprt-cambridge.org
Title
Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma
Contact
- Midior Consulting
-
- Cambridge MA
- US 02139
-
- +1.6178767879
Description
The Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT), originally founded at the Harvard School of Public Health, is a multi-disciplinary program that has been pioneering the health and mental health care of traumatized refugees and civilians in areas of conflict/post-conflict and natural disasters for over two decades. Its clinical program serves as a global model that has been replicated worldwide. HPRT designed and implemented the first curriculum for the mental health training of primary care practitioners in settings of human conflict, post-conflict, and natural disasters. Its training activities have been successfully conducted in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Cambodia, Croatia, Japan, and the United States. HPRT's landmark scientific studies have demonstrated the medical and mental health impact of mass violence as well as the cultural effectiveness of its clinical treatment and training programs. Working closely with Ministries of Health throughout the world, HPRT has developed community-based mental health services primarily in existing local primary health care systems. It has also successfully established linkages to major foreign university settings. HPRT's bicultural partnerships with international collaborators have resulted in culturally effective and sustainable programs that rely primarily on local human resources and indigenous healing systems. In order to achieve its mission, memorandums of agreements have been signed between HPRT and universities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Italy, Japan, and Thailand. As a university-wide program, HPRT has access to the full resources and talents of Harvard University, including the Medical School (HMS), the School of Public Health, the School of Education, and the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). HPRT is currently administered by MGH, one of America's oldest and most prestigious hospitals, which is a major teaching hospital of HMS.
HPRT's model, which focuses on the identification and treatment of extreme trauma (natural and human-made) through local indigenous healing systems, primary care, and community organizations, has been replicated throughout the world. HPRT founded its clinical program in December 1981 in Boston, Massachusetts. This clinic, the Indochinese Psychiatry clinic (IPC), was one of the first in the United States to care for the mental health needs of refugees; it soon matured into a major clinical center at Harvard Medical School. IPC's clinical and evaluation research demonstrated that refugees who have experienced extreme trauma and dislocation can recover and return to normal productive lives. HPRT's clinical activities were eventually extended to traumatized populations living in refugee camps (e.g., Cambodian refugees in Thailand), civilians in conflict societies (e.g., East Timor), civilians living in post-conflict societies (e.g., Bosnia-Herzegovina), and survivors of natural disasters (e.g., Kobe, Japan). Currently, HPRT is providing training and technical assistance to health and mental health providers caring for the survivors and the families of victims of September 11th in New York City.
HPRT is currently in the third year of a four-year grant from the Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide community-based clinical care for torture survivors residing in Massachusetts. HPRT clinicians are working on-site at primary health care centers and mutual assistance associations to screen and evaluate patients, and to provide consultation/liaison to primary care providers. HPRT is also collaborating with asylum attorneys to arrange mental health evaluation and treatment for their clients. This initiative, nicknamed "IPC+", represents the evolution of IPC’s capacity to offer evaluation and treatment for individuals and families who have survived mass violence, including torture.
