The IFH, main project of the Noor al Hussein
Foundation, has spent more than a decade helping women and
children, offering physiotherapy, women's services and programs for
disabled children. The institute is now looking to expand into
treating torture survivors, as Jordan struggles to absorb a new
wave of immigrants from both Iraq and Palestine.
IFH staff, including psychologists, physiotherapists, physicians,
nurses, social workers and community workers, participated in the
four-day workshop conducted by the RCT team (physician, two
psychologists and a physiotherapist). The workshop opened with a
discussion about learning needs and expectations, followed by
formal lectures on topics specific to the physical, psychological
and social aspects of torture. The final day was devoted to
interdisciplinary case studies.
After the initial training, RCT physiotherapist Lone Tived spent
an additional two days working with three physiotherapists from
IFH.
"We are fortunate in that the IFH physiotherapists are already
highly skilled, and are used to working with traumatized patients,
so we focused on the specifics for torture survivors," Tived says.
"We all did role-playing, to try out specific considerations in
physiotherapy for torture survivors and to assume the role of
patient so we could understand how it felt. Afterwards we discussed
the importance of a disciplinary team in seeing the patient
holistically and studying the complexity of problems after
torture."
According to Lone Tived, each member of the team must take
detailed notes during assessment, so that the torture survivor only
has to tell his story once. Subsequent team members can read the
notes, then ask follow-up questions specific to their areas of
expertise. Interdisciplinary teams usually consist of the
physician, psychologist, physiotherapist and social worker.
Lone Tived will return to Jordan in April and hopes to have more
pamphlets prepared on physiotherapy for treatment after specific
torture methods, such as suspension by the arms, to translate into
Arabic.
As far as she is concerned, the training is a two-way street. "The
IFH physiotherapists can learn the specifics of physiotherapy for
torture survivors from RCT," she says. "RCT physiotherapists can
learn more about culturally appropriate methods of treatment from
IFH physiotherapists, because we share similar client
populations."
Written by Emily Clark