Saturday,
May
4
ETO CONFERENCE
OPENING
Greeting, Mission,
Announcements
9:00 - 9:30 am
Steve Olweean, MA
SESSION
A
Plenary
Panel
Morning 9:30 - 11:00 am
"The
Syrian Refugee Crisis - An Overview of Need, Current Capacity of Local
Services, Required Strategies, and Implications of Doing Too
little Too Late"
A panel to frame the next 2 days of presentations, dialogue, and action
planning. Panelists currently providing services to refugees in Jordan,
Lebanon, Turkey, and Bulgaria engage in an interactive dialogue to
address:
- Reporting on current conditions and plight of refugees in
Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey (and other less known locations such as
Bulgaria), including pervasive psychological trauma.
- Assessing the level and availability of local mental health
services in the region, particularly in addressing the size and complexity
of the need.
- Determining what services are needed, and what strategies
are
most practical and feasible
for providing and sustaining them at the level required -
both short term and long term.
- Understanding the implications of this most recent massive
communal trauma, and the high potential for it continuing into the
next generation as transgenerational trauma that can fuel future animosity,
violence, victimization, and a continuing cycle if this current need
is not adequately addressed.
Nadim Al Moshmosh, MD, Mohammed Shoqeirat,
PhD, Tanya Awad Ghorra, MBA, Nir Boms, PhD, Shadi Martini, Yassar
Kanawati, MD
Moderator: Steve Olweean, MA
SESSION
B
Presentation
Morning 11:15 am - 12:30 pm
"Conflict
and Health: Perspective on the Syrian Refugees Mental Health Needs
in Turkey"
This presentation is an overview
of the health and mental health status and living conditions of the
over 200,000 Syrian refugees living in refugee camps in Turkey specifically
focusing on the stories from my visit to the Islahyaa and Kilis refugee
camps on the border of Antakya, Turkey, and Aleppo, Syria.
Adnan
Hammad, PhD
~
Lunch ~
12:30 - 2:00 pm
SESSION
C
Presentation
Afternoon 2:00 - 3:15 pm
"Humanitarian
Medicine in Times of Conflicts and Peace: Shifting Demands"
The speed and scale of the
events stemming from the Arab Spring in conflict areas has created
massive humanitarian needs and set major challenges for effective
and timely responses. It is essential to mount a flexible, rapid and
relevant response in a range of complex situations. The value of impartial,
neutral and independent approach, in terms of gaining access to and
making a positive difference for adversely affected people, is critical.
Just as important as an effective response to new or emerging crises
is the need to help build the resilience and coping mechanisms of
people affected by long-term crises and protracted conflict. This
session will explore the different demands during conflicts and afterwards.
Mouhanad Hammami, MD
SESSIONS
D
Presentation,
followed
by All-conference Action Planning Session
Afternoon 3:30 - 6:00 pm
1) 3:30 - 5:00:
"Social Health Care (SHC) Training
and Treatment Program: Building Local Capacity for Healing"
A comprehensive, integrated, and expanding training program
to equip hundreds of local graduate students in mental health related
fields, members of refugee communities, NGO staff, and volunteers
in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey with proven emergency mental health
treatment skills that enable them to quickly establish on-the-ground
services and provide critical trauma recovery to thousands of refugees
suffering from psychological trauma due to war and violence. In the
process the SHC program invests in significantly advancing the development
of local human service infrastructures and academic systems, as well
as vocational opportunities for trained service providers within their
communities, to ensure the service is permanent, sustainable, and
expands with current and future needs.
The SHC model provides an inclusive, mutually collaborative framework
designed to support, augment, and incorporate existing services and
efforts through an integrated and coordinated system that progressively
transfers full operation of both training and service delivery functions
to prepared local pools of experts and mentors. It is especially designed
to be implemented and replicated in developing societies where there
is massive need, the human service infrastructure is underdeveloped
or severely compromised by upheaval, and where resources are scarce.
By tapping into the internal human resources and traditions of the
recipient community itself it ensures cultural appropriateness, permanence,
and sustainability, and contributes to communal healing through re-empowerment
of the community as a whole to care for itself.
Steve Olweean, MA
2) 5:00
- 6:00:
All-Conference Action
Planning Session
Using information shared over day 1, engaging the full conference
in facilitated brainstorming and strategic action planning for practical
applications and possibilities for cooperation and mutual support
in responding to the crisis. This process will continue and lead to
final joint action planning and next steps
at the conference closing on Sunday.
Sunday,
May
5
SESSION
E
Plenary
Panel
Morning 9:00 - 11:00 am
"The State of Muslim Mental
Health"
Farha Abbasi, MD, Halim Naeem, PhD, Steve Olweean, MA, Zain Shamoon,
MA, Kameelah Rashad, M.Ed., Amal Killawi, LLMSW, Tahira Khalid, MSW
SESSION
F
Presentation
11:15 am - 12:30 pm
"Healing Invisible
Scars, SAMS Psychosocial Program and Experience with Syrian Refugees"
Dr. Sankari SAMS National Vice President will highlight
the importance of mental health assessment for displaced Syrians as
part of the medical relief effort for NGOs in the field. He will discuss
outcomes from SAMS psychosocial program in Jordan and findings of
recent mental health screening study in the refugees camps in Turkey
in collaboration with King's College in London.
Abdulghani Sankari, MD
~
Lunch ~
12:30 - 1:45 pm
SESSION
G
Presentation
Afternoon 1:45 - 3:00 pm
"“Forbidden
Aid: the Case of Israel, Syria, and Humanitarian Diplomacy ”
The presentation will focus on the
involvement of Israeli NGO’s in Syria related humanitarian work
with a particular focus on a joint Israeli-Jordanian project aimed
at providing aid to Syrian refugees in Jordan. The crisis in Syria
triggered the involvement of a number of Israeli NGO’s who believed
that Israel and Israelis cannot ignore the tragedy taking place across
its broader. Despite the obvious sensitivities and objective difficulties,
a number of Israeli groups were able to deliver aid and medical services
to Syria and to the refugee communities in Turkey and Jordan . One
of these efforts became possible via a joint Israeli-Jordanian effort
of activists who worked together for the Syrian cause. The presentation
will tell the story of these efforts and present a few insights about
another dimension of reality in the Middle East.
Nir Boms,
PhD, Qutaibah Oudat, Rami Soud
SESSION
H
Final
Joint Action Planning
- Next Steps
Afternoon 3:15 - 4:30 pm
Bringing
the full conference experience together to summarize benefits of shared
knowledge, promote opportunities for mutual support, determine what
collaborative agreements and concrete next steps for cooperation can
be formulated and implemented between organizations and groups, offer
individual opportunities for involvement, and establish mechanisms
for staying engaged in the networking process beyond the conference
to encourage a more concerted, coordinated, and effective response
to the massive mental health needs of refugees.
ETO
Closing
