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TWU professor,
students heading to Sri Lanka for tsunami aftercare
7/8/05
DENTON - A Texas
Woman’s University professor and four of her graduate
students are part of a team heading for Sri Lanka on Tuesday,
July 12, to help train Sri Lankan medical personnel and social
workers in counseling victims suffering from post traumatic
stress disorder following last December’s tsunami.
Dr. Merry Evenson,
an associate professor in the TWU Department of Family Sciences,
said the group will spend two weeks in Sri Lanka, teaching
trainees skills in helping others deal with grief, as well
as critical stress management and how to move on with their
lives in a healthy way. A special emphasis will be placed
on play therapy.
“We hope
to enable them to provide continuing counseling services to
tsunami victims in need after we are gone,” Evenson
said. She also hopes to gather data for a research project
on survivors of trauma.
Evenson was contacted
by a former student, Janet Perrera, now a counselor in the
Dallas Independent School District, who asked for her help
in training counselors in Sri Lanka. The short time frame
left no opportunity for the project to qualify for class credit,
and each member of the TWU group was required to raise approximately
$2,500 to cover expenses. The group is working with Children’s
Emergency Relief International, the overseas arm of Baptist
Child & Family Services, a human service organization
based in San Antonio.
For more information
on the TWU group’s project, contact Karen Garcia or
Amanda Simpson at (940) 898-3456, or via e-mail at ktreat@twu.edu
or asimpson1@twu.edu.
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For Further
Information Contact:
Karen Garcia
Senior Copywriter
Tel: (940) 898-3456
e-mail: ktreat@twu.edu |
