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Speaker
Amy Nitza
Institute Director
SUNY New Paltz
Dr. Amy Nitza is the Director of the Institute for Disaster Mental Health at SUNY New Paltz. She is a psychologist who specializes in providing mental health training in academic and non-academic settings both nationally and internationally, with an emphasis on disaster mental health and trauma recovery. As a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Botswana, she trained mental health and school counselors and studied the use of group counselling interventions in HIV/AIDS prevention among adolescents. She has collaborated with the University of Notre Dame in Haiti to develop trauma-related interventions for children in domestic servitude, and to provide training for teachers in dealing with traumatised children in the classroom.
She is also currently collaborating with UNICEF USA to develop and implement a program of mental health support for children impacted by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. Amy is the author and editor of numerous publications, including the recent book Disaster Mental Health Case Studies: Lessons Learned from Counselling in Chaos. She is a Fellow of the Association for Specialists in Group Work and serves on the Executive Board of the Society for Group Psychology and Group Psychotherapy (Division 49) of the American Psychological Association. She holds a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Indiana University. She formerly served as an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Professional Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.
MuseumNext Museums, Health & Wellbeing Summit
Wednesday, 02 February 2022
Supporting Museum Staff in a Trauma-Infused World
Museums today confront a variety of social, political, environmental concerns and challenges. While necessary, these efforts are not without consequence for museum and culture sector employees. What happens when the commonplace stresses of work and life move beyond the interpersonal or organisational into trauma-based ones, and staff must confront and cope with such realities? In this workshop, hear how the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History partnered with the Institute for Disaster Mental Health at the State University of New York at New Paltz to confront such challenges and how your organisation can begin this process as well.