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Browsing by Subject "objectives"

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    The Center for Victims of Torture International Services Department: An analysis and evaluation of the department's four objectives
    (Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, 2009-07-13) Slupphaug, Nina; Yamashiro, Peter
    The Center for Victims of Torture operates treatment centers in several different countries. While there is a singular, overarching goal to heal victims of torture and war trauma in all its treatment centers, CVT faces challenges in implementing its policies in a variety of locations. Each site has an array of ethnic groups, languages, cultural norms, and history of conflict. We believe that in order to succeed in the face of such challenges, international nongovernmental organizations need to be adaptive and flexible without diluting their strengths and values while forming and implementing their policies. We, the authors, are interns at The Center for Victims of Torture and much of the information we garnered for this paper was through personal interviews with staff at the organization. This paper addresses the following questions: How does the implementation of the four operations of CVT’s International Services department vary by location, what might be the reason for this, and how, if at all, does this affect the efficacy of the operations and the common goal of CVT to heal the mental and physical wounds of torture? This paper considers international treatment centers by comparing them to CVT’s domestic program and the changes required to the original program design in order to achieve their goals in different countries. This paper is organized to first provide the background of CVT, then the International Services department, and the International Services’ activities. Each section of activity will provide examples of activities and then explain specific differences in sites that were adapted to meet differences on the ground. We believe that it is vitally important that the treatment achieves its intended effects, but psychiatric symptoms are not easily quantifiable. With this in mind, this paper also has a meta-evaluation of how CVT measures the effectiveness of its mental health treatment, and for this purpose a clinical outcome is defined as “a characteristic of the consumer that, according to the theory and goals of the services, can be reasonably expected to change as a result of the consumer’s receiving them (Lyons et al 1997).” The purpose of the paper is to provide an evaluation of the International Services department within CVT as well as offer thoughtful recommendations as to how the department and the organization may improve their operations.