Bringing Survivors Together

Women's Post Article by Tashika Gomes

March 8, 2012

Elin Beaumont, program coordinator, recognized the connection between these two groups of individuals and started the initiative to team up the Azrieli Foundation Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program with the Woman Abuse Council of Toronto (WomanACT) and to hold events like this one. As guest speaker Dr. Paula David, a gerontologist, so curtly says, “Trauma is trauma,” and so the goal is to create a space where women who have suffered trauma can share their experiences. The main focus brings attention to an issue that is many times overlooked—post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in women. Most studies that have been done on PTSD on survivors of war, genocide, and natural disasters have been primarily focused on men.

Dr. David, who works at the Institute for Life Course and Aging and is a sessional lecturer at the Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, also addresses the importance of recognizing the differences between genders in their ability to move on with their lives. Since the study of PTSD is relatively new, about 65 years, it is the first time in history that people who have experienced it have been studied and counselled accordingly. It is even more recent that PTSD does not have the negative connotation that it carried years ago and that prevented people from speaking up about it.

So, today is a day of speaking up, speaking out and reaching towards understanding and exploring the ways in which women who have experienced trauma and PTSD can cope, and to further understand how to give them the best possible care. And so, women with a common thread have found a point of contact and no doubt a point of impact.

http://womenspost.ca/articles/politics/bringing-survivors-together

Type of News Item: News; Forums/Symposiums

Category/Topic of interest:
Woman Abuse
Communities, Cultures and Abuse

Population Group:
Friends & Family
Victims / Survivors

Language of News Item:
English

For More Information Contact:
    Paula Wells
    WomanACT
    (t)416.944.9242 x 230
    socialmedia@womanabuse.ca