Day 5: More Training

The Smiles Foundation staff of caring professionals is engaged in their second day of training and is involved in focus groups with members of the Regent University Trauma Team, which were designed such that they were able to glean specific psychology counseling attending skills. Domestic violence and related issues were addressed with various presentations by Drs. Keyes and Harris-Keyes and Dr. Merrill Reese, and processed in groups designed to specifically to address particular current challenges routinely faced by the Smiles Foundation staff at the facilities currently housing women and children who have fled domestic violence situations. The students of the Trauma Team led these focus groups utilizing the skills they acquired over the course of the last year. In addition, they demonstrated tremendous leadership skills as they collaboratively worked alongside the foundation staff. During these group sessions, the Romanians convey cultural perspectives that make such issues especially challenging for them, including the issue of male dominance in this society, the customary church perspective, and the absence of laws sufficient to protect women in such cases.

Attention was then turned to domestic violence and its relationship to substance abuse and psychological treatment for the traumatized family. Traumatized families would include those families forced to respond to various natural disasters, tragic accidents and illnesses, poverty and issues of substance abuse and domestic violence. All of these all issues have in common the required need for normal people to respond to very abnormal situations and a common symptomology as well. The presentations and group process were designed such that these issues were exhaustively explored and the psychological treatments indicated to address such symptoms were presented and conveyed in practice via the group process. Discussions followed that surrounded cultural perspectives, challenges and treatment implications relevant given cultural barriers and the current societal fabric concerning such matters. The atmosphere is filled with excitement as Romanian and American professionals and scholars address very relevant issues and seek out culturally sensitive approaches to very dire needs and problems faced in this area.

--R. LaVerne Washington