Mental Health Practice with Immigrant and Refugee Youth

B. Heidi Ellis, PhD, is director of the Refugee Trauma and Resilience Center at Boston Children amp rsquo s Hospital, and an associate professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on understanding trauma exposure, violence, and how the social context impacts developmental trajectories. For more than a decade she has built a community-based participatory research (CBPR) program with Somali refugees. Through this program she has investigated the role of discrimination in refugee youth mental health, and developed and evaluated a school-based mental health intervention for Somali refugee youth. Dr. Ellis is also the codeveloper of trauma systems therapy, a treatment model for traumatized children.Saida M. Abdi, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota . She is a clinical social worker, and an expert in refugee trauma and resilience. She earned her PhD from Boston University. She is a native of Somalia and a former refugee herself. Dr. Abdi has worked for more than 2 years in the area of refugee youth and families, developing school-based programs to support adjustment of refugee youth in resettlement and community-based research and intervention.Jeffrey P. Winer, PhD, is an attending psychologist at the Refugee Trauma and Resilience Center at Boston Children’s Hospital and is an instructor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Winer amp rsquo s work is primarily focused on developing, testing, and disseminating culturally-responsive psychological interventions for youth and families of refugee and immigrant backgrounds.Dr. Winer received his BA from Grinnell College and his MS and PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He completed his clinical internship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School and his fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. He also maintains a private practice.