Two Will Be Honored for Battle Against War's Trauma

At APA's 2005 Institute of Psychiatric Services in San Diego, the American Orthopsychiatric Association will present awards to two mental health professionals who have courageously assisted civilians traumatized by armed conflict. Both winners will also deliver lectures.

The Max Hayman Award will be presented to Ferid Agani, M.D., a psychiatrist who is a member of the parliament of Kosovo, for his development of a system of mental health services to facilitate the recovery of people traumatized in the civil war in Kosovo. In addition to serving as a legislator, Agani is an assistant professor of neuropsychiatry and psychodynamics at the University of Prishtina.

The Hayman Award honors distinguished scholarship in the mental health disciplines that contributes to the elimination of genocide and the remembrance of the Holocaust.

Michael Wessells, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., and senior child protection specialist for the Christian Children's Fund, will receive the Marion Langer Award. Wessells will be honored for his exemplary work to build systems of support and to preserve family and community relationships for children in numerous zones of armed conflict or natural disaster.

The Langer Award is presented annually in recognition of distinction in social advocacy and the pursuit of human rights.

Colloquially known as “Ortho,” the American Orthopsychiatric Association is a multidisciplinary organization of mental health professionals dedicated to the pursuit of social justice. The presentations and lectures will occur in a symposium cosponsored by Ortho and the American Association of Community Psychiatrists in the Fairbanks Ballroom in the West Tower of the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina on Saturday, October 8, from 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. The symposium will include a reception in honor of Agani and Wessells.

I will chair the session and present the awards. Noting Ortho's current emphases, I will also offer some introductory comments about the significance of the honorees' work for the pursuit of justice around the world.

These remarks will be elaborated by Robin J. Kimbrough-Melton, J.D., director of Clemson's National Center for Rural Justice and Crime Prevention and cochair of Ortho's Task Force on Mental Health and Human Rights. Specifically, Kimbrough-Melton will address the importance of protection of children's rights to personal security and of family relationships.

Ortho's other major annual award, the Blanche F. Ittleson Award, will be presented this year to Sandra Christenson, Ph.D., and Joyce Epstein, Ph.D., for their ground-breaking scholarship and public service to strengthen parents' participation in the schools.

Christenson is the Birkmaier Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of Minnesota, where she also directs the School Psychology Program. Epstein is a research scientist and director of the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University.

The award recognizes outstanding achievement in the delivery of children's services and the promotion of children's mental health. Christenson and Epstein will receive the award in ceremonies at their home institutions on September 15 and October 19, respectively. The Ittleson Award recipients will also lecture at the First Annual Ortho Summer Institute, to be held June 26 to July 1, 2006, in conjunction with the Cape Cod Institute (www.cape.org). Its theme is “Helping Children and Families Where They Are: Caring for Children in Schools, Pediatric Clinics, Places of Worship, and Other Community Settings.” ▪