Published: 04/13/2022

This event will be held on Stanford’s main campus and livestreamed. RSVP for the campus-based event here. Register for the Zoom-based webinar here.

For the past three years, Stanford’s Human Rights in Trauma Mental Health Program (HRTHMP) has been working with the United Nations Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (UNITAD) to promote a trauma-informed approach to human rights investigation that adequately acknowledges trauma’s long-term impact on individuals, families, and communities while maximizing the potential for empowerment and agency for trauma survivors.

In support of UNITAD’s mission to hold ISIL accountable for committing grave human rights abuses, the Stanford and Iraq-based teams recently launched a trauma-informed investigations field guide and accompanying reference manual that lay out practical, evidence-based practices for each stage of investigative work, as well as guidance on self and community care for investigators. They see this as a key step toward fundamentally adapting the way legal advocates, investigators, first responders, and mental health practitioners understand trauma related to human rights abuses, both in how they are trained to work with survivors and how they guide various justice systems’ understanding of the impact of these harms. Join these United Nations’ psychologists and the Stanford Human Rights in Trauma Mental Health Program to learn more.