As part of our Access to Treatment Initiative, we are offering trainings this month on working in clinical settings with family members of individuals who have been sentenced to death or executed.
Having a family member on death row, or losing a family member to execution, can have a profound traumatic impact on children, parents, siblings, and even more distant relatives. Yet these family members are typically unrecognized and underserved within the mental health community, which in turn makes them wary of seeking help.
To begin to address this gap in services, the Texas After Violence Project is offering two educational opportunities, offered on Tuesdays or Thursdays in June:
- An introductory presentation about the impact of a family member’s death sentence or execution. Clinicians, interns, and students are welcome. Two schedule options:
- A three-part training series, for those who have attended the introduction on 6/7 or 6/9, and now want a deeper dive into the topic with time for interaction and discussion. Two schedule options:
- Tuesdays 6/14, 6/21, and 6/28, also from 12:00-1:00 Central Time. If you think you’ll be interested in the three-part series, there’s a place to indicate that on the same registration form.
- Thursdays 6/16, 6/23, and 6/30, from 11:55-12:55 Central Time. Please click here to indicate your interest on this registration form.
Those who complete the three-part series will have the opportunity to be included in a referral list that the Texas After Violence Project will maintain and make available to members of this population.
Facilitator Susannah Sheffer, LMHC, is coordinator of the Texas After Violence Project’s Access to Treatment Initiative. She is the author of TAVP’s 2019 report Nobody To Talk To: Barriers to Mental Health Treatment for Family Members of Individuals Sentenced to Death or Executed, and previously directed the “No Silence, No Shame” project for Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, which focused on the impact of losing a family member to execution. She has been an invited expert on this topic in national and international forums, including the United Nations.
