Letter from Lisa LaDue

Dear Friends,

As Hurricane Gustav threatens the Gulf Coast and Tropical Storm Hanna churns in the Atlantic, we remain ever-presently aware of the potential for trauma in the lives of many. Two of the most important lessons that can learned from past disasters is that we should never show up to "help" uninvited and, once we commit to helping, we must follow through with this commitment.

We are very fortunate to have been asked by the United Family Hospitals and Clinics in Beijing to send help to China after the Sichuan Earthquake of 5/12 and we have entered into a commitment to provide significant help to those working with earthquake survivors through the anniversary of the earthquake in May, 2009. The China Earthquake Relief Project (CHERP) has recently become linked to the World Health Organization (WHO), a U.N. agency.

FHE team members Lisa LaDue, (Fort Collins, CO) Daniel Bruce (Santa Fe, NM), Alexandre (Ale') Duarte (Santa Fe, NM), and Donna Hillbig (San Antonio, TX) traveled to the earthquake-affected area in July to provide much-needed training in SE-based trauma intervention for psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, social workers, teachers and volunteers who are working with earthquake survivors. The training involved classroom instruction, demonstrations and exercises plus direct interventions with adult and child earthquake survivors. Two sessions of training were provided, resulting in at least 50 individuals receiving both classroom and fieldwork experience. As a "bonus" for the FHE team, a significant earthquake rocked the area where the team was working at a school on one of their last days in Sichuan Province.

Rob Blinn, Ph.D, an SE student in the Hong Kong training group being led by Maggie Phillips, provided regular updates on the project to the FHE. Here is an excerpt from an email he sent following the earthquake: "We had just finished the last of three afternoon sessions today. It was about 4:30 when the ground started trembling. I was standing on the side of the school building where we were located and as I started to notice the ground moving I saw several of the students from the school start to run away from the building. They were obviously more attuned to what was happening than I was. Then I felt a rock or piece of roof or something hit my head and I ran away from the building too!

Many were shaken up and activated. My heart was beating pretty fast! FHE staff immediately went to work with some of the adults and children we had just finished working with and some of our translators and support staff were shaken up as well. I have new appreciation for the phrase "shaken up" Some of our newly trained trainees started using skills they had learned. I myself used some of the techniques that I have learned from our trainers and Ale Duarte led the entire bus in some tracking exercises as we returned to Jiangyou and then Mianyang. We then sang songs to continue to discharge activation. Ale sang a few good Portuguese songs!"

Upon completion of this Phase Two of the Chinese Earthquake Relief Project (CHERP) one our training site hosts told Team Leader Lisa LaDue that "many people have come to provide training for us on PTSD – but your team is the first one that has taught us skills that we can actually use."

The Phase Three Team, led by Laurie Leitch (FHE's Director of Research), and consisting of Elaine Miller-Karas, Ellen Elgart, Brenda Williams, and Pat Kouwanbunpat will be on their way to Mianyang and Jianyou to continue providing training in SE-based trauma intervention skills. They are scheduled to depart September 14 and will spend two weeks providing training to reduce the suffering caused by the original earthquake and by the continuing after-shocks. The team's training will focus on both adults and children and will use the brief somatic training model, Trauma Resiliency Model (TRM), inspired by SE. The training format will be three days of classroom training and practice followed by two days coaching trainees in the fields as they work with survivors.The trainings will be offered to physicians, teachers and other volunteer responders. A half day large group training will be provided to physicians in Chengdu on 9/28.

Laurie Leitch, with the help of all the team members in Phases 2 & 3, is also implementing the evaluation of training and the assessment of survivors in order both to refine the training models being used and to have an understanding of the effectiveness of the somatic treatment provided by trainees to survivors.

Thanks to all for your financial and emotional support of the project.

If you can make a donation, please go to www.traumahealing.com and click on the "donate now" button.

We thank you for your interest and support.

Lisa LaDue and Laurie Leitch, CHERP Co-Directors