Northwest Indian Sunmask, represents warmth and light to counterbalance the chill and darkness of violent death.
| Dr. Ted Rynearson (Medical Director of Separation and Loss Services at Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, Washington) initiated a support program for family members after violent dying in 1989. With the cooperation of the county medical examiner, this community support program continues to contact families in Seattle after a homicide to offer outreach, advocacy and clinical intervention (at no charge) if indicated. In 1993 the program received VOCA funding and since its inception has assisted over a thousand family members with protocols for screening and manuals for short-term interventions. From 1998-2001, Separation and Loss Services was awarded a separate, Discretionary Grant from the Office for Victims of Crimes, U.S. Department of Justice, to replicate the Seattle Community-Based Support program at other sites across the U.S. The grant funded an intensive four-day training (given at the beginning of each year for four successive years) for service providers from national sites engaged in active support of family members after violent death. Dr. Rynearson served as the Medical Director of the training project and maintained an active consultative relationship with each site after the training including a site visit to ensure updated training. During the grant period, this training project funded the attendance of 83 service providers at four separate four-day trainings. Attendees represented the following 19 major cities (with 28 separate sites): |
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| While all of these sites offer free service to adults (mothers are at highest risk for needing assistance), most include services for children and adolescents. The majority of sites are based within VOCA-supported agencies already assisting families after violent death, and include our systematic screening and time-limited group interventions in their range of services. Throughout the project, we stressed to service providers the importance of providing support service that meets the needs of their respective communities; exact duplication of the support service developed in Seattle may or may not be appropriate. Each site presents differing needs specific to the ethnic, cultural and spiritual ingredients of their community members, and is staffed by personnel trying to shape and shade their intervention into an approach they can have confidence in using. We encouraged trainees to implement those aspects of training that reinforced or supplemented their range of existent services. Although support services vary between sites, we have been encouraged that 13 of 19 sites have started time-limited group interventions, and all sites have included some aspect(s) of our screening and restorative interventions in individual counseling. The number of family members presenting at these 19 sites for assistance ranges from less than 25 per year to greater than 200 per year. The vast majority of those seeking help engage in some form of time-limited group or individual intervention. These numbers suggest that over one thousand family members each year are now receiving updated treatment within the network of our sites. In addition to representatives from sites across the nation, a psychiatrist from New Zealand attended our 2000 training to start a site in Auckland, New Zealand. Most recently, Dr. Rynearson was invited by the Australian Department of Mental Health to provide a one-week training in October 2002, and participate in their efforts to initiate a Homicide Support Project in Australia. SEPARATION & LOSS TRAINING DEVELOPMENT: The Separation & Loss provides training services for a wide range of community and professional groups in teaching requisite skills for implementation of comprehensive, community-based support and intervention after violent death for children and adults. Our training staff and regional consultants are available for national and international requests for training assistance, planning and consultation. We here include a listing of state, national and international trainings recently administered. Trainings for 2004/2005: Washington State Trainings: The Separation & Loss Service was awarded a Washington State VOCA Training Grant to design and complete state wide trainings on the management of complicated grief after criminal death in 2004&5 in collaboration with a local victims support agency. The trainings were entitled, "Complications in Bereavement from Violent Death by Criminal Acts Including Terrorism", and were facilitated by Fanny Correa, MSW, CT of Separation and Loss Services, Virginia Mason Medical Center, and Jenny Wieland, Executive Director of Families and Friends of Violent Crime Victims. Trainings were conducted at divergent regions throughout Washington State at the following locations: Bellingham, WA - December 2, 2004 Silverdale, WA - Deccember 16, 2004 Tacoma, WA - January 13, 2005 Vancouver, WA - February 22, 2005 Kennewick, WA - March 31, 2005 Spokane, WA - May 11, 2005 Participant learning goals were: - Who are secondary victims from violent death - Traumatic grief and how it differs from "normal" grief - Cultural and gender influences on traumatic grief - Importance of rituals - Issues regarding spirituality - Different types of complications to bereavement - Intrusions from other systems (second "assaults") - Roles of advocates and clinicians and how collaboration benefits their mutual clients - Case studies - Importance of networking in Washington State - Resources Participation in the various sessions ranged from 15 to 35 persons, that included systems-based advocates, community-based advocates, and clinicians. At the time of completion, the program office published a resource directory with contact information for all the clinicians, system and community-based advocates, clergy and others who attended the trainings. All training participants were sent a copy of the resource directory to maintain a working network and facilitate the process of identifying trained professionals in the different regions. Evaluation scores indicated that 96.46% of the training participants were highly satisfied. Regional Trainings: The Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) under the U. S. Department of Justice awarded Separation & Loss Services a training grant entitled "Outreach and Support Beyond the Crisis." The project goals were 1) to identify and implement four national trainings for mental health professionals, advocates, faith based leaders and other community service providers who serve the longer-term psychological consequences of violent death and terrorism in their communities; 2) develop a training curriculum to help participants to identify vulnerability and non-accommodation in family members after violent death and 3) identify those who serve victims of violent death and initiate the development of councils within each of the training regions to continue development of a more comprehensive and collaborative system of longer-term community outreach and spiritual and emotional support following the tragedy of violent death. The project staff selected the four locations (Seattle, WA; San Diego, CA; Miami, FL; Washington, DC) for the trainings and began collaborating with regional organizations/partners to host the training events. National and regional experts were identified to serve as faculty members for an inclusive audience - clinicians, crisis counselors, first responders, victims' assistance, military, clergy, support groups and others. In each of the regions we collaborated with regional partners to form a local planning committee of representatives from clergy, police department, victim advocates, children and adult intervention programs, State employee assistance program, and program staff. We identified experts/presenters for Disaster and Outreach, Spirituality and Support, Adult and Children Screening and Intervention, Compassion Fatigue and Resilience. The planning committees identified local existent community outreach and support services such as State and Federal response including National Transportation Safety Board, Mental Health and Clergy and the Military. The presenters for each of the trainings, submitted training materials and handouts for review and for development of the final training curriculum. General Overview The four trainings were presented in four different cities over a two year period: Seattle, Washington March 24 & 25, 2004 San Diego, California November 5 & 6, 2004 Miami, Florida March 18 & 19, 2005 Washington, D.C. September 29 & 30, 2005 Each training followed a similar two day training format, and several of the speakers presented at all four conferences. Each training included lectures, panel presentations, a live interview, and interactive exercises. Power-point projections, slides, audiotapes, overheads, and videotapes were used. All attendees received a conference notebook including biographies of the speakers and handouts for each of the presentations. In addition, resource tables were set up at each site with free brochures provided by participating agencies. The following data summarizes the total results for all four trainings combined. Total Conference Attendees: 417 Completed Evaluations:265 (64%) General Feedback The average overall rating for the trainings was 4.7 on the five-point scale shown below, with five being "excellent".
The evaluations also provided guidance for the training curriculum that was a product of the grant project. Training Curriculum: A detailed curriculum of the two day training was completed by project staff and submitted to the Office for Victims of Crime. The curriculum is to be distributed through the Training and Technical Assistance Center (TTAC) in the next year. Trainings for 2007:
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Page created 2/27/03 - Last updated 03/27/08