Please Listen to JON SNOW making an appeal for the RTC on BBC Radio 4 - 13 July 2008 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/

About us

> Staff and volunteers

> Management Committee

> Patrons

> Steering Committees

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The Refugee Therapy Centre was established in 1999 in response
to the growing need for a therapeutic service which respected, and worked with, the cultural and linguistic needs of refugees and asylum seekers providing people with the opportunity to be heard and receive help in their own language where possible or in English if they so wished.

Chair – Dr Stuart Turner
Stuart Turner established the Traumatic Stress Clinic, a national centre for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which he directed until 2003, and is now Consultant Psychiatrist at the Trauma Clinic in London. He is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at University College London, past Campus Dean at Royal Free and University College Medical School, past President of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and a current board member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. He is also a Trustee of REDRESS, an organisation working for reparation for torture survivors.

Vice Chair – Dr Josephine Klein
Josephine Klein is a Co-Founder of the Refugee Therapy Centre. She came to England from Holland with her family in 1940. She went to an English school and won a scholarship to University. She was a university teacher for 25 years, retiring into private practice as a psychotherapist in 1974. She is a Fellow of the London Centre for Psychotherapy. Josephine is now supervising the Centre’s group work and teaches on the Counselling Course at the Centre. Her publications include The Study of Groups (1952); Working with Groups (1956); Samples of English Cultures (1965); Our Needs for Others and its Roots in Infancy (1987); Doubts and Certainties in the Practice of Psychotherapy (1995); and Jacob’s Ladder (2003).

Clinical Director / Company Secretary
Dr Aida Alayarian

Aida Alayarian is a Co-Founder and the Clinical Director of the Refugee Therapy Centre, as well as Company Secretary. She has been a Clinical Psychologist and Child Psychotherapist since 1986, and adult psychotherapist since 1998, working with families and children in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural settings. Prior to becoming Clinical Director of the Centre, she worked for seven years at London’s Intercultural Therapy Centre, NAFSIYAT, was Head of Therapy Services and Chair of the Panel of Foster Carers at the Childcare Co-operative. She also worked at the Brixton Community Mental Health, South London & Maudsley NHS Trust and at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trusts. She is currently serving as an Elected Council member of the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT).

Dr John Denford
John Denford is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with experience in general psychiatric and psychotherapeutic hospitals in London and Dunedin, New Zealand. He is an Associate Member of the British Psychoanalytical Association since 1960 and a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists since 1980. John was Medical Director of the Cassel Hospital in Richmond from 1988-1994 and Clinical Co-ordinator
of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Torture Victims from
1995-1997. In his early career, he trained as a medical doctor in New Zealand. His particular interests are in inpatient psychotherapy, group teaching and therapy, psychotherapy in general practice and hospital practice. He has published numerous publications and has several teaching appointments.

Mr Lennox Thomas
Lennox Thomas first trained in clinical social work, then moved to the probation service and later to psychiatric hospitals. He is a former Co Director of the MSc Course in Intercultural Therapy at University College London, a former Clinical Director of the NAFSIYAT Intercultural Therapy Centre, a member of the British Association of Psychotherapists and of the Institute of Family Therapy, a trainer and supervisor in Intercultural Therapy. He also provides supervision at the Refugee Therapy Centre and at other Refugee Organisations

Management Committee

Dr Stuart Turner
Dr Josephine Klein
Dr Aida Alayarian
Dr John Denford
Mr Lennox Thomas
Dr Micol Ascoli
Ms Mary Robertson
Dr Juliet Webster
Mr Winston Shapiro

Dr Micol Ascoli completed her medical, psychiatric and psychotherapeutic training in Italy and since 2004 she is working as a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Newham Centre for Mental Health. Her special interests are psychodynamic psychotherapy and Cultural Psychiatry. She has presented and chaired sessions at several international congresses since 2001 and she is a member of the World Association
of Cultural Psychiary, World Psychiatric Association Transcultural Psychiatry Section, Dutch Society of Transcultural Psychiatry, and the Italian Institute of Transcultural Mental Health.


Ms Mary Robertson
Mary Robertson is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and service manager at the Traumatic Stress Clinic in London, which provides multi disciplinary trauma services to survivors of violence. Prior to working at the Traumatic Stress Clinic, Mary managed the Trauma Clinic at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. Mary has extensive experience in working with trauma in a variety of settings and with diverse client groups. She has local and international experience in consultancy, training, programme evaluation and policy development. She was one of the founder members, acting coordinator and trustees of the South African Network of Trauma Service Providers (Themba Lesizwe) and she was a member of a national reference group on the National Crime Prevention and Victim Empowerment Programme in South Africa.

Dr Juliet Webster
Juliet Webster is the Business Development Director of the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA), which assists organisations to develop effective employee information and consultation processes and workplace partnership. Prior to this Juliet was the Director of Work and Equality Research from 1997 to 2005, an official in DG-Employment of the European Commission in Brussels working on gender equality policies, and before that she worked at the Universities of East London and Edinburgh. Juliet's particular interests are in the creation of good work and working conditions through employee involvement and the advancement of equalities in the workplace.
Her publications include a recent report to the European Commission entitled "Changing European Gender Relations: the findings of recent social research and their implications for gender equality policy" and the books "The Information Society in Europe: Work and Life in an Age of Globalisation" and "Shaping Women's Work: Gender, Employment and Information Technology".

Honorary Treasurer – Mr Winston Shapiro
Winston Shapiro has 35 years experience of Business in the UK and abroad. His parents migrated to Central Africa from the Middle East before the First World War.



 

Mr Jeremy Corbyn MP
Jeremy has been the M.P for Islington North since 1983. He is the Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Human Rights Group and Vice-Chair of the Western Sahara Group (APPG). Jeremy's national profile is based on his actions against poverty, and in support of social security, environmental and human rights questions both at home and internationally. As a member of the National Council of CND Jeremy has spoken at and attended human rights and peace conferences including Beijing, New Delhi, UN/Geneva. He has had significant involvement in campaigning against miscarriages of justice. He has campaigned hard for decent pension provision for all, against racism, and on the major issues affecting his constituents, especially unemployment and low pay. He attended the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva on a regular basis.

Ms Eva Hoffman
Born in Poland in 1945 to Holocaust survivor parents, writer Eva Hoffman is the author of several books, including the widely regarded Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language and most recently, Shtetl: The Life and Death of a Small Town and the World of Polish Jews. Having received a Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Harvard, Eva Hoffman has been a professor of literature and of creative writing at several institutions including Columbia, the University of Minnesota, and Tufts; she was an editor and writer at The New York Times from 1979-90, serving as senior editor of "The Book Review" from 1987-90. In her newest book, "After Such Knowledge," she addresses what the Holocaust means to the second generation, children of survivors.

Professor Roland Littlewood
Roland Littlewood is a Professor of Anthropology and Psychiatry at the University College London Centre for Medical Anthropology. He was the winner of the Welcome Medal for Anthropology as applied to Medicine, and the Wilde Lecturer in Natural Religion, Oxford 1998-1999, and has had numerous other honours. Roland is the author of a number of important publications including the standard Littlewood and Lipsedge (1982) Aliens and Alienists: Ethnic Minorities and Psychiatry and Littlewood and Kareem (1992) Intercultural Therapy: Themes, Interpretations and Practice.

Mr Keith Miller

Keith Miller is an NBC News Senior Foreign correspondent based in London. As a foreign correspondent for NBC News for almost three decades, he has covered events in more than 80 countries. Miller’s first assignment for NBC News was in London, from 1977 to 1978, as a radio correspondent and foreign news editor covering Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Since then, among his many assignments, Miller has covered the revolution in Iran, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the assassination of India's President Indira Ghandi, the Tiananmen Square Tragedy in China, the Iran-Iraq war, the Civil war in Lebanon, the American bombing of Lybia, the Civil war in Bosnia, the famine and American military incursion in Somalia, the genocide in Rwanda, the civil unrest in the former Zaire, the fall of the apartheid government in South Africa and the election of Nelson Mandela as president. Miller is the recipient of seven national Emmy nominations, two Edward R. Murrow Excellence in Broadcasting Awards, two citations from the International Olympic Committee and three National Headliner Awards and an Overseas Press Club Silver Baton for Outstanding Coverage of Spot News.

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