Associate Professor of Sociology, Northern Illinois University. Correspondence to:
Tana Consulting. Correspondence to:
Torture. 2023;33(2):45-63. doi: 10.7146/torture.v33i2.135818.
While the literature encourages engaging torture survivors in the direction and provision of services, little is known about how best to do this.
We surveyed 82 member centres of the International Rehabilitation Council for TortureVictims (IRCT), a worldwide network of anti-torture organisations, and interviewed fourteen staff members and executive directors about current practices, best practices, and the advantages and disadvantages of engaging survivors.
While few agencies involve survivors extensively, those that did found survivor engagement helped agencies engage in better planning, service provision, and advocacy, while at the same time being healing and empowering for survivors. Agency staff described strategies to minimize retraumatization, particularly in not encouraging survivors to share the story of their trauma, but to engage in other ways. Agency staff suggested a number of ways to engage survivors in program direction, service provision, and advocacy, which included having survivors serve on the board of directors, hiring survivors as staff, involving survivors in advocacy, advising staff and volunteers on how better to provide services, and working as community outreach workers and mediators.
IRCT member centres can engage survivors in programming without retraumatizing them, and there are many advantages to doing so.
虽然文献鼓励让酷刑幸存者参与服务的规划和提供，但对于如何最好地做到这一点，我们知之甚少。
我们调查了国际酷刑受害者康复理事会（IRCT）的 82 个成员中心，该理事会是一个全球性的反酷刑组织网络，并采访了 14 名工作人员和执行主任，了解当前的做法、最佳做法，以及让幸存者参与的优缺点。
虽然很少有机构让幸存者广泛参与，但那些这样做的机构发现，让幸存者参与有助于机构更好地进行规划、提供服务和宣传，同时对幸存者也具有疗愈和赋权作用。机构工作人员描述了一些策略来尽量减少再创伤，特别是不鼓励幸存者分享他们创伤的故事，但可以通过其他方式让幸存者参与。机构工作人员提出了一些让幸存者参与项目规划、服务提供和宣传的方法，包括让幸存者担任董事会成员、雇佣幸存者为员工、让幸存者参与宣传、就如何更好地提供服务向工作人员和志愿者提供建议，以及作为社区外展工作人员和调解人。
IRCT 成员中心可以在不使幸存者再次受到创伤的情况下让他们参与项目规划，而且这样做有很多好处。
