|  Counseling,
Rehabilitation,
and Student Development 
Henfield Makes Austrian Connections
Henfield, far left, learns valuable lessons while performing community service in Austria. |
Counselor Education and Supervision Assistant Professor Malik Henfield spent a week this fall in Austria learning about the country’s culture and providing service at a refugee camp called Volkshife Wien.
“I was particularly interested in helping them because a major aspect of what they do is provide counseling services to those seeking asylum,” he said. “I love to see organizations who understand the importance of mental health.”
Henfield and the 23 others he traveled with spent a day painting walls in the refugee camp.
“Given the difficult circumstances from which many of the individuals and families are escaping, we felt that something as simple as brightening the walls of the place where they are forced to live goes a long way towards making their stay somewhat easier to manage,” Henfield said.
The trip was through Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and the Kellogg Worldwide Experiences and Services Trips program. Henfield said that in addition to being able to help the people at the refugee camp, he enjoyed spending time with the Kellogg students.
“As my research interests are focused on high academic achievers, this was a great opportunity to develop personal relationships with first-year students from one of the most prestigious business schools in the country,” he said.
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Disaster Class Put to the Test
Tarvydas's (2nd from R, front row) class timely, effective. |
class intended to prepare Rehabilitation Counseling students to respond to disasters became more practical this summer than anyone could have predicted.
Professor Vilia Tarvydas created a class that addressed the disaster needs of the people her students work with on a daily basis.
“They’re vulnerable,” she said. “You put them in a disaster situation and I realized nobody’s paying enough attention to these people. It seemed important that we provide some training. It was the right thing to do.”
Tarvydas co-taught the course, “Counseling in the Aftermath of Disasters,” with American Red Cross media spokesperson and Government Liaison Officer Peter Teahen. He has responded to 40 major disasters throughout the United States and abroad, including the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center, the Sri Lankan tsunami in 2004, and five hurricanes in 2005, including Hurricane Katrina.
“He is an expert without peer,” Tarvydas said.
As the pair prepared for the inaugural class session this summer, predictions started rolling in about Iowa’s impending floods.
Tarvydas remembers receiving an email about the flood from Teahen that read, “Indescribable destruction. Hard to comprehend.”
So instead of having their students participate in a drill to simulate a disaster situation, Tarvydas and Teahen guided the students through responding to an actual disaster in their own backyards.
“It was obvious that there were tremendous opportunities for learning,” Tarvydas said. “The idea of learning about a disaster through having to be flexible and adapt is the ultimate learning experience.”
Teahen said the experience left the students ready to respond to an unpredictable world.
“I’m hoping they understand the dynamics of disasters, especially the human side of it,” he said. “They’ll be able to understand what a disaster does to the clients they’re serving.”
In addition to classroom discussion, students participated in hands-on experiences. They worked in teams to do welfare checks on citizens in Cedar Rapids through The Abbe Center.
John Mikelson, a member of the class, said he was glad to learn more about how the county and state deal with disasters and how to look after the needs of disaster victims and response workers.
“This isn’t theoretical; this is real world,” he said.
Tarvydas hopes the course becomes a regular offering, and intends to build a specialization in disaster response. The specialization would require taking the disaster response class, two other mental health courses, and participating in a related practicum.
But there will likely never be another class like the summer 2008 session.
“It was intense,” Tarvydas said. “It felt a little out of control at times, but on one hand, that’s exactly how it should be.”
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