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Refugee Issues & Psychology Interest Group
Webinar Series 2015
Refugees & Asylum Seekers: Experiences, issues and interventions
RIPIG invites you to a series of 4 webinars…..
This series of webinars explore a range of critical topics in understanding the psychology of
being a refugee and asylum seeker and what psychological interventions and support can be
undertaken to help. It will provide clinicians, therapists, and workers new to working with
refugees and asylum seekers an opportunity to develop professional knowledge and skills in
this complex and often highly charged area. For those experienced in this area it offers an
update of issues and a refresher of the key considerations in working with this group of highly
vulnerable people. It brings together some of the leading experts in the field in a
comprehensive and contemporary review of issues and interventions. It is a professional
development activity for clinicians, therapists, and workers and is not suitable for consumers.
Facilitators for the series: Elizabeth Conroy/Lee Beames RIPIG
Webinar 1
Tuesday 24th February, 2015
6.00pm-8.00pm (AEDT)
Presenter: Dr Ida Kaplan
Topic: Experiences, issues and interventions
This webinar will focus on the pre-arrival experiences of asylum seekers and refugees, the impact of
detention and the challenges of settlement. An overview of why people seek asylum and the international
context will receive some attention. Responding to the needs of refugees and asylum seekers, once in
Australia, will be examined from a professional perspective and that of being a member of a civil society.
The webinar will also consider effective trauma based interventions, distinctive issues when working with
people from diverse backgrounds and the relationship between therapy and advocacy.
Webinar 2
Tuesday 10th March, 2015 6.00pm–9.00pm (AEDT)
Presenters:
Topic 1: Mr David Manne
Topic: 1. The legal context
Topic 2: Dr Amanda Gordon
2. Child, adolescent, and family issues
David Manne will provide an overview of the current legal context of the refugee experience.
Dr Amanda Gordon will provide an outline of the complex child, adolescent and family issues to be
considered in working with refugees and asylum seekers. The Psychology response to the Human Rights
Inquiry into Children in Detention will be outlined and discussed.
Webinar 3
Tuesday 14th April, 2015 6.00pm – 9.00pm (AEST non -daylight saving)
Presenters:
Topic 1: Guy Coffey
Topic 2: Dr Angela Nickerson
Topics: 1. Ethical issues
2. Mechanisms underlying refugee mental health:
Implications for psychological treatment
Guy Coffey will discuss the notion that working with asylum seekers who are in immigration detention or the
community and undergoing refugee status assessment presents ethical challenges which need to be
articulated before embarking on work with this population. He will discuss the sources of the ethical
challenges and possible responses to them and outline issues that need to be considered in order to
understand the ethical questions involved.
Angela Nickerson will outline a theoretical model that proposes pathways to adaptation following trauma
and displacement. Elevated rates of psychological disorders have been documented in refugees. Little is
known, however, about the mechanisms by which psychopathology develops following exposure to
refugee-related trauma and torture. Findings from empirical studies testing components of this model will
then be presented. These studies will examine the impact of both refugee experiences (trauma exposure
and post-migration living difficulties) and internal processes (memory dysfunction, cognitive processes and
emotion regulation) on refugee mental health. Implications of these research findings for psychological
interventions will be discussed.
Webinar 4:
Topic:
Tuesday 12th May, 2015 6.00pm – 9.00pm (AEST-non daylight saving)
Therapeutic approaches for working with asylum seekers and refugees
Therapy: EMDR
Presenter: Asena Yuetsever
Asena Yurtsever will provide a brief overview of Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing
(EMDR) therapy (which has Level 1 evidence for processing trauma). Arsena will outline the ground
breaking research that she and her colleagues undertook in Turkey. This research demonstrated the
effectiveness of an EMDR Early Intervention protocol (R-TEP) and an EMDR Group Therapy Protocol (GTEP) on PTSD symptoms of Syrian refugees. The innovative methodology of this research and the
dramatic outcomes for participants will hopefully inspire therapists in Australia and internationally to
consider EMDR as an effective therapy for refugees. A short video of this research will be shared.
PLEASE NOTE: the video will only be available to participants who attend on the night of the presentation.
It will not be available to those who watch it after the 12 th May 2015.
Presenter: Sangita Wadnerkar
Sangita Wadnerkar works as a Psychologist/ Clinical Team leader for Refugee as Survivors New Zealand.
She has been using EMDR effectively on Refugee population since 2008. She will present a summary of
her refugee work using EMDR, case studies and tips on how to use EMDR more effectively with this
traumatised population.
Therapy: Narrative Exposure Therapy (NET) as a treatment for refugees - concept,
evidence and challenges
Presenter: Professor Frank Neuner
Narrative Exposure Therapy is a treatment approach that has been developed for the treatment of victims
of war and torture. It has been successfully tested in a series of randomized trials with various conflict
populations. The experience with NET from various settings and institutions worldwide shows the potential
as well as the limitations of exposure based treatment with refugees.
Therapy: Neurofeedback and Biofeedback with Survivors of Torture and Trauma.
Presenter: Sejla Murdoch
Sejla Murdoch will provide an overview of biofeedback and neurofeedback to develop our understanding
of the principles behind biofeedback (Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Training and Neurofeedback (NF)). She
will explore the application of HRV and NF in clinical practice, based on the work with a large number of
clients at STARTTS (The NSW Service for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Torture and Trauma
Survivors) Neurofeedback Clinic.
Cost (per webinar) Registrations close at midnight Sunday prior to each webinar
Per Webinar:
Standard rate
APS member:
Non-APS member:
Student rate
APS student member
Non APS student member
$45 (inc GST) per webinar
$55 (inc GST) per webinar
$30 (inc GST) per webinar
$35 (inc GST) per webinar
Group Rate: (ie two or more people watching together):
APS member:
$80 (inc GST) per webinar
Non-APS member:
$100 (inc GST) per webinar
Registration and accessing the webinars
To register*: https://events.psychology.org.au/ei/getdemo.ei?id=1601&s=_3W00Q5TI4
Note, the group rate offers the option for two or more people to watch the webinars at a heavily
discounted price. This is obviously an honour system. Any profit from the webinar series will go towards
establishing on-line peer support for therapists working with this client group.
We reserve the right to cancel webinars if there are insufficient registrations. A refund will be made to
those already registered in this instance.
To access: About a week prior to each webinar, you will be sent a link to attend the webinar. * The
email address provided on registration will need to be for the person who is sent the link to
attend the webinar or watch it later. You will also receive a reminder the day before. PLEASE check
your ‘junk email’ folder to ensure any messages that will be sent from the APS are not inadvertently
discarded. You will need reasonable bandwidth (preferable broadband) on your internet connection. If
you are registered, but not able to attend a webinar, you will receive an email about a week after the
event with a link to review that webinar. The link will be valid for three months only. A link to each
webinar will be available for 3 months after the event to the email address associated with registration.
CPD: 2hrs for the first webinar and 3 hours for each subsequent webinar
Enquiries Mary Harvey at email:
[email protected]
About the presenters ...
Dr. Ida Kaplan is Direct Services Manager at the Victorian Foundation for
Survivors of Torture. In that role she oversees client services, is involved in
the development of service models for refugees and asylum seekers and
has had extensive experience, locally and internationally training
professionals in the provision of appropriate interventions for survivors of
torture and trauma. She has a longstanding policy, practice and research
interest in the intersection of mental health, social justice and human rights
issues in understanding recovery from trauma. She has conducted research
into the effects of long term detention and is currently investigating methods
for enabling refugee children to have a voice in research on well-being.
David Manne is a lawyer and migration agent, and Executive Director of the
Refugee & Immigration Legal Centre (RILC). He has worked in various
capacities assisting refugees and asylum seekers for over 20 years. In
January 2001, he joined RILC, which is the largest provider of free legal
assistance to disadvantaged migrants, asylum seekers and refugees in
Australia.
David sat on the Board of the Refugee Council of Australia for seven years,
and currently sits on a number of other non-government Boards, including
the Human Rights Law Centre and the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of
Torture Ethics Committee, and peak Government consultative bodies. He
has also been appointed to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Advisory Board of Eminent Persons.
David has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the
Law Institute of Victoria Paul Baker Prize for Administrative and Human
Rights Law, and President’s Awards (2006 and 2011), and was shortlisted
for the Australian Human Rights Commission Human Rights Medal in 2011.
Guy Coffey is a clinical psychologist who has assessed and treated asylum
seekers and refugees for twenty five years in public mental health and
specialist trauma services. He is currently the direct service coordinator at
Foundation House and is employed sessionally at the Psychological Trauma
Recovery Service, Austin and Repatriation Hospital. He assesses asylum
seekers for the purposes of providing reports to the department of
immigration; immigration detention health services; for refugee status
assessment and for the courts in criminal matters. His primary research
interest is in refugee mental health and the intersection of psychological and
legal issues in policy toward asylum seekers and refugees. He is also a
lawyer employed at Victoria Legal Aid where he works principally with
asylum seekers in relation to applications for refugee status and in matters
related to immigration detention.
Dr Angela Nickerson is a Lecturer at the School of Psychology, University of
NSW, and Director of the Refugee Trauma and Recovery Program. Her
research focuses on understanding the psychological mechanisms
underpinning refugee and post-conflict mental health, and developing
effective interventions for traumatic stress reactions in refugees. She is also
interested in the impact of policy on refugee mental health, and cross-cultural
considerations in psychological processes. She has worked with numerous
refugee and post-conflict populations in Australia, Switzerland, the United
States, and Timor Leste.
Dr Frank Neuner, is Professor of Clinical Psychology at Bielefeld University and
head of the university outpatient clinic at Bielefeld University. He has gained
international reputation for his contribution to the development of Narrative
Exposure Therapy, a short-term mental health intervention for traumatic stress.
He has published the first randomized treatment trial for posttraumatic stress
disorder in a war region that has been followed by a series of RCTs of his
working group. His expertise is epidemiology, etiology and treatment of severe
trauma-associated psychological disorders following repeated intense adversities
like war and child abuse. Currently he is funded for studies on the consequences
of child maltreatment as well as relationship between trauma resulting from war
and family violence from a developmental perspective.
Sejla Murdoch is a senior clinician at STARTTS and is a registered psychologist.
Sejla has more than 17 years experience with clients who have experienced
chronic and complex trauma. Since 1998, Sejla has been employed by
STARTTS, first as a counsellor in the Early Intervention Program and later as the
Clinician Trainer. In her role as the Clinician Trainer, Sejla coordinated and
facilitated the Clinical Master Class Evenings that feature many local and
overseas experts working in the specialised field of trauma. She also facilitated
the Professional Development Training Program aimed to further the skills and
knowledge of clinicians working with refugee trauma. Currently Sejla is part of the
Neurofeedback Clinic, and in this capacity has presented nationally and
internationally on issues related to complex trauma and Neurofeedback and The
Heart Rate Variability in working with torture and trauma survivors.
Adjunct Associate Professor Amanda Gordon is the current and founding
convenor of the Refugees Issues and Psychology Interest Group of the APS.
During her term as President of the APS, she became a member of the
Detention Health Advisory Group to the then Department of Immigration and
Citizenship, and continued to represent the APS at this high level around these
issues until the (renamed) Immigration Health Advisory Group was disbanded in
November 2013. Amanda co-developed and presented the Mental Health and
Harm Prevention Strategy around all the immigration detention centres then in
the network, and had close dealings with medical and in particular mental health
staff working within the system. She has led calls within and on behalf of the
APS for changes to the treatment of Asylum Seekers, and has been a strong
advocate for the professional bodies to speak with a strong united voice around
the evidence of harm caused within current policy parameters.
Sangita Wadnerkar works as a Psychologist/ Clinical Team leader for Refugee
as Survivors New Zealand. She has been using EMDR effectively on Refugee
population since 2008 . She will present a summary of her refugee work using
EMDR, case studies and tips on how to use EMDR more effectively with this
traumatised population.
Asena Yurtsever is a clinical psychologist. She is one of the founding
members and current co-president of the EMDR Turkey Association. Asena
has been working with trauma survivors (eg: earthquake, plane crash, war,
abuse, rape, fire, mine disaster etc.) for over 15 years. Since 2006 she has
provided consultation to colleagues locally and internationally about EMDR and
trauma. Asena also provides training to mental health professionals,
Government Departments and various organizations about trauma interventions
and establishing trauma units. Asena has recently co-authored research papers
regarding the effectiveness of EMDR in Syrian Refugees with symptoms of
PTSD.
Webinar Series 2015
Refugee Issues & Psychology Interest Group