Online Psychological Evaluation Training for Therapists Helps Refugees Find Safety in US

Marc Sadoff, LCSW offers webinar for mental health clinicians willing to provide services pro bono or low cost to immigrants facing deportation hearings

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Marc Sadoff, LCSW

Mar 06, 2017, 07:45 ET

LOS ANGELES, March 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The evaluation report and testimony can make the difference between being deported back to potentially lethal country conditions, and finding safety in the U.S. The lawyers for undocumented immigrant defendants can often make a better case in court with a psychological evaluation. The psychological evaluation can clarify the immigrant's credibility and documents the effects of abuse, discrimination, torture, or the extreme hardship of being separated from their family.

Training Info URL - RealHope.com/webinar-training

Unaccompanied children seeking asylum in detention center. Most of these children are coming from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala; where the government cannot protect them from gang violence. The psychological evaluation helps demonstrate a 'credible fear' of returning.

Therapist's psychological evaluation helps keep families together. A psychological evaluation is extremely helpful to document the harm to an American citizen, so that family members are not deported.

The clients are: unaccompanied child refugees, immigrant victims of domestic violence, survivors of human sex trafficking; victims of torture, women fearful of the honor killing declaration made by male family members, or Americans suffering extreme hardship if their family is separated.

The webinar training is for mental health clinicians, who are willing to do pro bono, or very low fee psychological evaluations for at-risk immigrants in deportation hearings across the country.

The 7-hour course prepares therapists to interview, write a report and perhaps to testify in court. Mentoring and ongoing consultation will help usher newly trained evaluators through their first interviews and experiences giving testimony. It begins March 24^th and continues April 7^th and April 21^st.

Many are refugees who meet the requirements for asylum, but without the psychological reports they can't make their case effectively. One reason they are still deported is that they didn't have the money to pay the $500 - $3000 usual fee for a licensed psychotherapist to conduct the interviews, write the report, and to testify if needed.

Mr. Sadoff became aware of the crisis on the southern border of over 60,000 unaccompanied children under 18 years old, who were fleeing the violence of Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala in 2014 alone. Three local Los Angeles pro bono immigration law agencies stated that about 60 cases of these children could have benefited by a psychological evaluation. He decided then to train a pool of clinicians willing to do pro bono and low fee evaluations to help.

Mr. Sadoff said, "This training of mental health professionals is my profession's positive activism and resistance to injustice in the world and at home."

Mr. Sadoff has conducted 110 psychological evaluations for immigrants facing deportation, over the course of 18 years. He worked for four years with the Program for Torture Victims Los Angeles. He has been accepted as an expert witness in traumatic stress in 60 out of 60 times he testified in court.

#AsylumPsychologicalEvaluationTraining

Contact Mr. Sadoff, LCSW at 310-663-4165 Available for interviews.
Pacific Skills Training Co.
Email- [email protected]

SOURCE Marc Sadoff, LCSW