As August drew to a close, Dr. Velazco lead the Certificate Training Program in Aftercare (CTPA) in Nepal for leaders in counselling and rehabilitation of trafficked, abused, and orphaned children. Over the course of six days everyone involved in this participatory workshop learned from the inter-regional interaction: knowledge from the Southeast Asian context enriching the critical understanding of the South Asian context and the inverse. Aftercare practices and protocols that create safety, confidence and healing were explained and examined, and tools for engaging children in their own progress towards restoration were shared. After an intense week that required much self-reflection as well as involvement in the course itself participants felt that some of the most powerful things they learned were:
• “Working with children who are in / came from traumatized backgrounds”
• “Communicating with the sexually exploited child”
• “psycho-educational intervention strategies”
• how to form a “therapeutic alliance”
• the function of “evaluating after caring”
