Family Systems and Global Humanitarian Mental Health

Laurie L. Charlés, PhD, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and qualitative researcher based in Boston, Massachusetts (U.S.) She is a faculty instructor and former director of the MFT program at Our Lady of the Lake University, San Antonio, Texas, USA, and recent subject matter expert in family therapy with two psychotherapeutic interventions courses sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO), and as a WHO Mental Health Officer during the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa in 2015. Focused on scaling up family therapy practices for host country nationals in fragile states, Dr Charlés’ work as a scholar and practitioner includes the performance of qualitative rapid needs assessments & the supervision and training of psychiatrists, psychosocial workers, and family therapists for family therapy and psychosocial support programs in low and middle income countries. Dr Charlés has both a PhD in Family Therapy from Nova Southeastern University and a M.A.in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Her publications have appeared in Family Process, the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, the Journal of Family Therapy, Qualitative Inquiry, and Boston Globe Magazine. She is a 2017-2018 Fulbright Global Scholar. Gameela Samarasinghe, PhD, is a Clinical Psychologist by training and is an Associate Professor in Psychology in the Department of Sociology, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. She initiated the design of and introduced the Postgraduate Diploma and Master’s in Counselling and Psychosocial Support at the Faculty of Graduate Studies, University of Colombo. These postgraduate programs try to provoke thinking on alternative visions of what support to individuals and communities might look like while at the same time providing training on conventional counselling skills. She is the Coordinator of both programs. Shehas been a member of various advisory groups developing strategies for post-conflict trauma in Sri Lanka and internationally. These include her role as Technical Advisor to the Asia Foundation’s Reducing the Effects and Incidents of Trauma (RESIST) Program and to the Victims of Trauma Treatment Program (VTTP), which are programs designed to support and treat torture survivors. She was a member of the international research team on “Trauma, Peace building and Development”, run from the University of Ulster. She has written extensively on mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in Sri Lanka. She has been awarded many fellowships and has been the recipient of research grants including the Fulbright-Hays Senior Research Scholar Award (2004 – 2005) at Boston University and the Fulbright Advanced Research Award (2013 – 2014) at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.

• Introduction to Family Systems and Global Humanitarian Mental Health: Approaches in the Field.- Through the Storms: How a Master’s Degree Program in Marriage and Family Therapy Came to New Understandings After Surviving Both a Natural and a Human Disaster Within Six Months.- Disasters are Never Natural: Emerging Media to Map Lives and Territories at Risk.- Paved with Good Intentions? The Road of the Humanitarian Project of DNA Identification of the Missing in Post-Conflict Cyprus.- Undocumented and Unafraid: Resilience Under Forced Separation and Threat of Deportation.- “Do you Know the Tale of Cinderella?” Case Study of the Use of Metaphor and Proverbs with a Newlywed Syrian Couple in a Refugee Camp in Sidon, Lebanon.- Between Family and Foreign Policy: A Gendered Approach to Understanding the Impact of Foreign Policy Failure on Human Security in the SIDS of the Caribbean.- Drawing In or Ruling Out “Family?” The Evolution of the Family Systems Approach inSri Lanka.- Transvision: Unknotting Double Binds in the Fog of War.- The Role of Family and Culture in Extreme Adversity: Psychosocial Response to the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) Epidemic in Guinea, West Africa.