Millions of refugees have been displaced by war trauma and mass violence since World War II. When Dr. Mollica started one of the first refugee clinics in December 1981, little was known of the impact of mass violence and torture on the health and mental health of highly traumatized patients, families, and their communities. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Bank, US Department of State, and other major international policy makers dealing with refugees did not have the mental health of refugees on their policy agenda. The medical profession at that time had no culturally valid scientific approaches for the diagnosis and treatment of refugees and other survivors of mass violence and torture. Gender-based violence was considered a criminal act (e.g., rape) and not a crime against humanity.

Dr. Mollica and his team at the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT) was able to put mental health on the international policy agenda through its advocacy, clinical, and scientific efforts, as well as pioneering with David Kinzie, MD (at Oregon Health and Science University), a new medical field of refugee mental health. His pioneering work has been fully described in this 2021 Harvard Gazette issue celebrating his 40 years of working at Harvard. The Harvard Gazette states: “Mental health experts credit Richard Mollica with ‘single-handedly’ creating a subspecialty in modern psychiatry”.

Although books on the cultural aspects of mental health already exist, Cultural Psychiatry With Children, Adolescents, and Families is one of only a few to focus specifically on the role of culture in mental health assessment, diagnosis, and care of children, adolescents, and their families. In the United States, more than 50% of children younger than 15 years identify as nonwhite, a designation that comprises many ethnicities and cultural backgrounds. In addition, diverse sexual/gender identities and religious/spiritual beliefs can render young people a hidden minority. This text was written for health care providers across all disciplines and clinical settings caring for the mental health of these patients. The editors, who are the recipients of this year’s Creative Scholarship Award, as well as other experts on diversity and inclusion, apply history, theory, and evidence-based practice to the various dimensions influencing mental health in children, adolescents, transitional-age youth, and families across the cultural spectrum.

Gwen Mitchell and Brieanne Kohrt have both done outstanding work together as a team for the past three years chairing and organizing the last three SSPC Annual Meetings. Their work has been superlative. Organizing an annual conference is a challenging task that involves coordination of many different aspects of the meeting, including structuring and ensuring the quality of the scientific program, coordinating continuing education approval, dealing with all details of the meeting location and execution, and optimizing budget solvency. Successful annual meetings are essential for SSPC to fulfill its core missions in cultural psychiatry.

Dr. Mitchell is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the International Disaster Psychology: Trauma & Global Mental Health program at the University of Denver. With over two decades in clinical psychology, she has dedicated more than 10 years to humanitarian aid in post-conflict and refugee settings.

Dr. Mitchell has worked with Doctors Without Borders, The Center for Victims of Torture, the United Nations, and Open Society, providing clinical services, consultation, and training in trauma counseling, child development, gender-based violence, and victim support. She has also contributed to mental health policy development in Liberia and consulted for various NGOs on trauma and mental health initiatives.

Her expertise includes immigration and asylum testimony, PTSD, intergenerational trauma, and stress responses, with her research and presentations spanning topics such as post-traumatic growth, moral distress in humanitarian workers, re-entry trauma, and group counseling in crisis settings. At DU, she oversees both the clinical and academic components of the IDP program while continuing to advance global mental health initiatives.

Dr. Kohrt is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in perinatal mental health, complex trauma, and cultural adaptation of interventions for Spanish-speaking communities. She is a Perinatal Psychologist at the Developing Brain Institute (DBI) in Washington, DC, where she directs the Latina Perinatal Mental Health Fellowship, and an Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Behavioral Sciences, and Pediatrics at George Washington University.

Dr. Kohrt is committed to reducing barriers to mental health care for Spanish-speaking families. Her research focuses on task-sharing models to address perinatal mental health needs in low-resource settings across Latin America and the U.S. She leads projects in Guatemala training community health workers in perinatal mental health and is the PI on a study culturally adapting Perinatal Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (P-ACT) for Central American immigrant women. She is also the Director of PASEO Salud Mental, a non-profit expanding access to mental health care for Spanish speakers in the U.S. and Peru. Through PASEO, she co-leads a Spanish for mental health immersion program in Peru focused, and also developed the PASP-MH, an assessment of Spanish skills specific to the mental health field, in order to ensure that Spanish-speaking patients receive high quality mental health care. Her work with PASEO led to her receiving the Division 52 (International Psychology) Early Career Psychologist Award in 2023. She is active in several organizations, including the National Latinx Psychological Association, where she co-chairs the Bilingual Special Interest Group, the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture, Postpartum Support International, and Divisions 52 and 53 of the American Psychological Association.