Brenda Punsky, plenary speaker at Bi-national Conference of the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma. San Diego State University.
TRAININGS AND CONFERENCES
Whether at a local, national, or international level, facilitating trainings and doing presentations is part of the work that I enjoy the most. They cover a wide range of topics (see menu below), and the content and format of each one is tailored to meet the specific needs of the audience and host institution, agency, organization or association.
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Specialties
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I specialize in trauma, migration-related, and burnout prevention trainings. Most are geared toward the professionals and volunteers who directly or indirectly provide services to the migrant population in the United States, particularly those seeking some form of immigration relief (asylum, T and U visas, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, VAWA, etc). This includes professionals in the legal, medical, mental health, case management, community-building, administrative, and interpreting/translation fields, as well as volunteers, researchers, non-profit funders, and anyone who is curious and wants to learn about this topic.
Past hosts
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Background
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In addition to a background in social justice, immigration and human rights law, and clinical social work training, my experiences as Immigration Advocacy Director and Senior-level Psychotherapist within Terra Firma/Montefiore Health System, allowed me the privilege of 1) providing trauma-informed psychotherapy services to hundreds of patients, including assisting them in processing their experiences of pre-, during, and post-migration; and 2) training professionals in different fields about what trauma is, its impact on behavior and mental health, and best practices to provide trauma-informed services. See co-authored peer-reviewed scholarly publications here.
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Training Menu
The following is a list of the most sought after topics, but requests for a combination of some of them or a different one altogether are always welcome. Since it is common for hosts to be initially unsure of which training will cover their team's needs, I encourage you to reach out to me even if this is the case so I can assist you in figuring this out.
All trainings are dynamic and in addition to encouraging audience participation when possible, include case examples throughout.
Experiences and needs of unaccompanied immigrant children (UIC) and asylum-seeking/migrant families
Participants learn:
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To identify who UICs and asylum-seeking families are,
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To recognize their common experiences during the different stages of migration, including: a) pre-migration (experiences in countries of origin), b) during the journey to reach the US border, c) during apprehension at or near the border after crossing it, and d) release from detention.
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About the psychosocial stressors, challenges, and needs of the population post-release, including legal, medical, mental health, and concrete.
Provides an overview on the concept of trauma and its impact on child development, as well as the complexity of trauma sources within this population and their manifestation in both children and adults. Participants also learn considerations, specific guidelines, and best practices in which they can provide trauma-informed services to this population, regarding of their role. This training can be tailored to to specific professions.
Trauma and trauma-informed services
Mental health services for UICs and asylum-seeking families
This training may include the training(s) above, and focuses on specific mental health strategies/interventions tailored to UICs and asylum-seeking/migrant families; it's usually intended for mental health providers.
Attendees learn about trauma-informed considerations, specific guidelines, and best practices when doing evaluations and drafting affidavits or other documentation in support of immigration relief cases (asylum, SIJS, U visa, T visa, VAWA, etc.). This training is intended for mental health providers either doing forensic evaluations, or evaluations for current patients they are providing mental health services to.
Trauma-informed mental health evaluations for immigration purposes
Burnout prevention: Impact on professionals and volunteers working with trauma
This training is designed for varying disciplines of professionals that empathically serve populations that have experienced trauma. Participants will learn how to recognize the warning signs of vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress, as well as mitigate risk of and/or prevent burnout and compassion fatigue. Organizations will learn how to support their staff in managing job-related stress and promote their genuine self-care, in order to maintain wellness and sustain professional and compassion satisfaction.
Let's explore your team's or organization's needs so that I can build a training that is specifically tailored to it.