The team spent a fourth and final day of training today with the Smiles Foundation staff. This morning, Dr. Keyes presented on sexual trauma and offered ways to approach survivors of sexual trauma in treatment. This is a problem the foundation’s staff has encountered on many occasions in the Gypsy communities. Following the presentation, the Regent team met with the staff in groups to process the information and discuss how it can be applied to specific cases. The afternoon session included a second presentation by Dr. Keyes on dissociative disorder (formerly known as multiple personality disorder), commonly experienced by those who suffered sexual trauma as children. The presentation included treatment approaches and offered Biblically based theories of counseling. As the teams broke into smaller groups with the staff, it was amazing to see how quickly the foundation’s staff assimilated the information and examined ways of applying it to the people they serve.
The Regent team will be spending the next few days working with staff and students at the educational support program offering services to the Tilead community, visiting patients at a local psychiatric hospital and offering individual and family therapy to displaced families and the homeless in surrounding areas. Therefore, team leaders assembled respective teams for strategic planning for the day ahead. Team members will be partnered with the foundation social workers and translators before going on these various assignments, so it was necessary to discuss the most effective ways to facilitate services for the oncoming day’s work. It is our hope that the training provided to the staff as well as the therapy and psychological services offered to the members of the Romanian and Gypsy community will continue to impact this population long after we return to the States.
--Jason Boling
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