Social Health Care for Healing Syrian Refugees

October was our busiest month of services to date as we launched a number of new projects as well as our ongoing efforts. We are excited about our growing partnerships and the ability it brings to expand our services to the refugee community and our ongoing efforts to grow the capacity of psychosocial services in the region. Even with the improvements in services, by and large experienced and well trained staff in trauma treatment is well below the need.

Amongst our recent efforts includes:

1. The establishment of a women's safe space in Irbid, Jordan where a large number of Syrian refugees live. The safe space provides a place for women/girls to get needed support, exercise, a number of goods needed by families, vocational training services, training in psychosocial support as they learn to parent to the needs of traumatized children, and the establishment of some cottage industry. Funding came through the efforts of a student volunteer from Michigan State University. SHC will continue to provide virtual classes and volunteer support to the safe space.

2. Distribution of 5,000 teddy bears donated by Care for Children. Training and a training manual was distributed to several NGO's on how to use the teddy bears as a therapeutic tool and how to train parents on the use of the bears in this manner. Along with the distribution of teddy bears to refugee children, SHC provided musical concerts through the organization, Empty Hands Music, as well as coordinated children activities with the aid of expressive arts therapists who came to assist SHC efforts.

3. Expansion of Women's Support Groups at our pilot clinic in Amman. Groups were run for several days along with student volunteers. Additionally, training and meetings with the students to assure regular facilitated meetings of the women's support groups. Because of the range of services we were offering this year, we only did one day of clinic for individual sessions which serve primarily as opportunity for our trainees to experience direct services by trained professionals. The women's support groups had the benefit this year of working with movement and somatic issues/stress management with professionals from the U.S., Germany, and China. Additionally, the women received training in parenting with traumatized children with a child psychologist from the U.S. All of the support group efforts were deeply appreciated.

4. Common Bond Institute (of which SHC is a part) and Michigan Statehas launched a new training program in mental health, psychosocial, and psychiatry for medical students throughout Jordan. On the ground training in stress management and self care were the initial offerings. Regular virtual classes will be offered to medical students on topics related to trauma informed care and patient care skills. Many of the medical students regularly volunteer to offer support services to the refugee community and are a critical component in building capacity of services on the ground.

5. Held the annual International Conference on Transgenerational Trauma which brings trainers from all over the world and offers a range of trainings to SHC volunteers, diploma students, and NGO staff who work with the refugee populations. 

We continue to develop and translate into Arabic training materials for use in trainings with students at Yarmouk University, SHC volunteers, medical students, and collaborative NGO staff. The newest addition being translated is a manual in support group facilitation. The manual also provides material on how to form self help groups and lead topic driven groups such as parenting, how trauma effects us, and vocational skills.