Monterey, California, United States
1. ALWAYS BE LISTENING GLOBAL INITIATIVE Fndg Exec. Dir., compassionate nonprofit, reg. in US 501 (c)(3) 2014 alwaysbelisteningglobal.com [email protected] 408.455.7347 Twitter @DrMarilee Serving forcibly displaced unaccompanied war/armed conflict-affected children in Kenya; Somalia; Jordan, Syria (Jordanian camps for Syrian refugees) Burundi w/Human Healthcare Burundi, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, DRC, Pakistan, SO USA; Carribean 2. ABBEY PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES Founding Executive Director Saratoga/Monterey, CA 408.455.7347. CURRENTLY INACTIVE, NOT ACCEPTING CLIENTS www.abbeypsychservices.com [email protected] Twitter @drMarilee Comprehensive Child Family and Adult Psychological Services and Referral, Intake, Psychological Assessment, Diagnosis, Treatment; Referral. CURRENTLY NOT ACCEPTING CLIENTS ABBEY HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE & PROTECTION: provide prompt confidential clinical support and linkage, assistance, compassionate care for global professional colleagues, NGO executives, at risk relief personnel in remote, unstable, conflict-ridden settings. ABBEY BLUE CANOE serves indigent US youth in emergent homeless situations; transitions them to collaborating protective agencies equipped to address immediate safety, cyclical homelessness, health/mental health/medical issues, provide education; vocational training, reconnection to families of origin as appropriate and safe.
ADDENDUM: Brief Description of Activities Descriptions, further . . . JORDANIAN CAMPS FOR SYRIAN CHILDREN PAKISTAN: Consult, surviving children of Taliban school attack in Karachi; w/child survivors of Taliban bombings/NATO drones residing in camps Bannu & Kohat, Khybee Pakhtoon Khwa (KPK) Province No Pak. (Urdu). Project disrupted in its beginnings by Peshawar school massacre. KENYA project - impoverished, war-affected children, Dir. Elisha Ooga, Zelyn Acad, Kibera Slum School, Kenya (Swahili), collaborative supportive project in need of funding. UGANDA & SOUTH SUDAN projects, Tom Ogwal, Exec. Dir.,SUTCO, potential Residential School into which street children will be integrated. BURUNDI/TANZANIA: Dir. N. Hermenegilde, Human Health Aid Burundi, N.E.A.R. Humanitarian Network, Consult & Grantwriting; Asylum Seekers Relief Service (ASRS),mothers/children/daily from DRCongo; training refugees in peer to peer counseling, Narrative Therapy, co-writing grants for prevention of Gender Based Violence Tanzania; we are co-writing major grants for Basic essential needs in one of the world's largest camps for Burundians fleeing civil carnage in their country - many many are children. We have acquired basics for survival for children under five, nursing mothers, elders over 75, blankets, clean safe safe water, medicines, milk, blankets. So. US/Cuba/Carribean: Initiated, S. Bergkamp, Country Director. SOMALIA- Dir., Abdikadir Hassan, GBV Sr Officer IRC, dollo Somalian camps, lower Jubba, Gedo, Bay & Bakol regions SO Central Somalia IRELAND- potential collaboration as refugees surge into Ireland. Aoife Mary O'Brien, Dir Research, Hibernia College UKRAINE- provided consult re: psychological emergency treatment for soldiers & families of soldiers on med/psych leave, who are briefly home and returning quickly to combat- consult provided via telementalhealth.
Always Be Listening Global Initiative, Independent Nonprofit in the US, 501(c)(3) alwaysbelisteningglobal.com [email protected] "Diminishing the sources of suffering, promoting sources of healing and joy" Through need-based assessment, determining type of healing intervention through a brief, valid, conversational method of "listening" to the direct, lived, traumatic 1) experience of children of war/armed conflict, their individual 2) ways of coping, and their unique, 3) post traumatic symptoms. Rapid results facilitate creation of a personal profile that is developmentally accurate, trauma-sensitive, research-informed - specific to each child and wieldable for determination of mode and type of intervention. Brief conversational protocols are read to each child by a trained indigenous field worker eliminating the stress of reading and writing. They have survived the worst of within-country terrorism and witnessed and suffered unspeakable physical and mental war trauma - loss, chronic terror and threat, torture, deprivation of every kind, most of them having died before reaching the border -fleeing, wandering in geopolitically high risk regions near their country borders. We maintain a presence in approximately ten regions/countries given staffing, permission, cooperative/collaborative opportunities, current geopolitical status: Burundi/DRC border, Burundi/Tanzania, Tanzania camps, Uganda, SO Sudan, Kenya, Somalia as permitted, US/So US Border, Caribbean, Pakistan as permitted, Jordanian camps for Syrian children - Za'atri, Ireland/potentially.
Since 2000, a significant portion of my practice is made available for high-risk youth who cannot pay through Engaged Abbey ~ Blue Canoe. Rapid, accessible, low/no-fee clinical services are available for truly marginalized children/youth made vulnerable by immediate, acute distress, abandonment, poverty, addiction, crime, complicated health conditions (invasive medical procedures, pediatric cancers, HIV/AIDS, injuries incurred through victimization, family crisis) -- no access to psycho-spiritual support; treatment. Most have no stable or accepting family, lodging, or means of support. Many are traumatized by gender-based harassment, violence, overwhelmed by the stressors of poverty; cyclical homelessness: 600+ SJ; 1200+ SC County, 2012. With developmental, identity challenges (transgender youth); others are part of unaccompanied, domestic, global migration, US commercial sex trafficking, violent/forced displacement from oppressive cults/regimes; some exposed to torture/genocide in their countries of origin. I've supported families whose children have acute or chronic cancer, kidney conditions, are undergoing painful medical procedures; children awaiting transplant, children who have witnessed the homicide, suicide or rape of their parents or siblings. I offer acceptance, time, safety, a place to organize/sort themselves out, have their stories heard, dreams, disappointments witnessed; supported. I assess risk, evaluate practical needs, establish trust, engender hope, give information; the canoe part-- lift/shore them up, move them toward safety, family members/friends if feasible, other mental health providers - "into the canoe", heading in a healthier direction. They may stay for stabilization and treatment, be shifted to organizations with immediate options for housing, full assessment, employment, (Covenant House SF, etc.). Some connect briefly, disappear, return to check on friends, see if they're remembered; may phone when ill, destabilized.
abbeypsychservices.com [email protected] 831.275.8260 Office Private Practice in Child (Fam) & Adult Clinical Psychology, Silicon Valley, Monterey Bay Area, CA. Compassionate Precision Clinical & Forensic Psychological Assessment, Consultation, Expert Testimony, Treatment for Children/Parents/Families experiencing chronic, unresolved interparental high conflict and/or violence. As well, we see children with impulse, attention, and mood disorders, those in highly stressful situational contexts who may be suicidal (suicidal thinking &/or behaviors). We support these children & others who are deeply distressed and distraught within their everyday contexts as they co-construct new, life-giving, hope-filled stories and develop other means of effective coping, -- collaborating with family, caregivers, educators, other professionals -- all who have meaning in the lives of the children. Compassion focused, we provide mindful, comprehensive, evidence-informed and trauma-focused assessment & treatment. It is co-created work, highly responsive to diverse ethnolinguistic, clinical, gendered and global, cultural & interreligious, contexts. We employ a flexible, theoretically integrative clinical approach, we are psychodynamically, attachment, and developmentally grounded; apply contemporary cognitive behavioral & trauma theory, are mutually engaging, strongly collaborative w/psychiatry, primary care, perspectives of other providers, educators; service agencies. We encourage, consult, supervise, coach/mentor, teach, train, provide parent consultation, coparent therapy; and routinely provide second opinion services for children, teens, adults. Children may be identified for treatment simply because they exist within fragile families and may thus been exposed to sibling/parental interpersonal verbal abuse, high unremitting conflict, and sustained or witnessed perpetual violeonce.
Integrating functions of trauma/refugee child/family psychologist, Professionals for Humanitarian Assistance & Protection - Geneva (member), Physicians for Human Rights, Doctors for Global Health, Health Right International, Human Rights Law Network, I conduct asylum/hardship/mitigation evaluations, provide expert testimony, collaborative trainings, professional presentations; clinical services for asylees, refugee families. With: Robert Jobe Law Center SF, Katharine-George Alexander Community Law Center Santa Clara, UC Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law; Law Offices, Bernadette W. Connolly, SJ. Re: torture effects/complex trauma at California Psychological Association; complex trauma & child rights at UN-sponsored workshops. At the Center for Survivors of Torture SJ from its inception until 2008, provided asylum evaluation, testimony, treatment for torture survivors, trained students and colleagues, conducted research; presented findings at international conferences. Presently focusing on collaborative clinical activities with Honorary Global Psychology Advisor Nausheen Shahzad, Neuropsychology Center, Pakistan (access, stigma, clinical relevance, border conditions which contribute to child resilience, youth vulnerability to terrorist recruitment; appetite aggression), Santa Clara Law Group (asylum evaluations) and FACTR (Narrative Life project, Ethiopia early immigrants). I mentor doctoral students, foster learning, train and contribute to clinical/research on the nature of extreme stress and complex traumatization commonly experienced secondary to gendered violence, political oppression, the affects of war, torture, violent; forced migration. I address its scope, impact on identity and development across the lifespan, investigate intergenerational and intercultural manifestations of trauma and immigration trauma, accurate assessment and explore effective, evidence-responsive treatments for post trauma states (NET, KidNET; LRI; CPT; Compassion Focused Therapy).
Advisor, Child Dev. | Promoting Wellbeing, Reducing Effects of Childhood Adversity - Pakistan, Karachi and Islamabad, with Executive Director, Nausheen Shahzad. Provide pediatric consultation regarding effects of childhood adversity and promotion of resilience. Advise regarding global psychosocial issues of stigma, access, selection, best practice delivery of services; clinical development of family services. Despite country disparities, we collaborate on the many issues our societies share: concerns for child health and healthy development and enhanced family wellbeing, minimizing the effects of exposure to interpersonal and environmental stress and conflict (IPV), accurate assessment of these, and effective, evidence-based, culturally and linguistically contextualized interventions and modes of delivery of treatment. In addition, we wish to better understand the effects on youth of adverse border conditions in war-affected regions - we explore how being orphaned, impoverished, and growing up in the midst of high conflict reduce children and adolescents' access to adequate health, mental health, educational and vocational resources, diminish their sense of physical security, emotional wellbeing, sense of efficacy in the world, worth, and hopefulness -- and we want to explore how these can be mitigated. Harsh living conditions, extreme stress, and pervasive, cumulative contextual hardship contributes to their acute vulnerability to external exploitation; renders them highly susceptible to exploitation by Taliban recruiters.