Incorporating Religious Sensitivity in Trauma Healing for Displaced Persons

Events at USIP

As part of this year’s World Mental Health Day, the U.S. Institute of Peace and the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Religious Freedom’s Strategic Religious Engagement Unit hosted a discussion on religion, MHPSS and migration. The conversation drew on findings from USIP’s initiative on Religious and Psychosocial Support for Displaced Trauma Survivors, which has identified specific ways in which faith-sensitive mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) can increase the effectiveness of trauma healing interventions for migrants and refugees. Panelists offered insight on actions that can be implemented in current efforts to assist migrants from highly religious contexts and to improve the quality of and accessibility to MHPSS to facilitate integration and reconciliation.

Speakers

Palwasha Kakar, opening remarks Interim Director, Religion and Inclusive Societies, U.S. Institute of Peace

Dan Nadel, opening remarks Senior Department Official, Office of International Religious Freedom, U.S. Department of State

Dr. Alastair Ager Director, Institute of Global Health and Development, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Dr. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh Principal Investigator, Refugee Hosts; Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies, University College London

Dr. Wilson López López Professor, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana

Cristal Palacios Founder and Director, Psicodiáspora Camilo Ramirez Parra Country Director, HIAS Colombia Nida Ansari, moderator Policy Advisor, Strategic Religious Engagement, U.S. Department of State

Andres Martinez Garcia, moderator Program Manager, Religion and Inclusive Societies, U.S. Institute of Peace

Jerry White, closing remarks Award-Winning Humanitarian Activist and Professor of Practice, University of Virginia

For more information about this event, please visit: https://www.usip.org/events/incorporating-religious-sensitivity-trauma-healing-displaced-persons