Sharing experiences: Director of creative arts project, Asia-Pacific
Name: Atira Lydia Tan
Position: Director/Founder
Organisation: The Art2Healing Project
Country/State where based: Australia and Asia
1. Tell us a little bit about your role and how you're involved in supporting children affected by sexual exploitation and/or trafficking?
Our organisation provides expressive art therapy programmes, women's reproductive health trainings and mental health trainings to improve the psychosocial support and mental health of victims of sex trafficking. Since our inception we have worked in 6 countries in Asia and the Pacific. We work with both trafficked survivors and service providers to help improve the psychological and emotional care of those suffering from trauma.
2. What activities and assistance does your organisation offer to children and their families who have been affected by sexual exploitation and/or trafficking?
We provide training programmes in the expressive art therapies, yoga and meditation, trauma healing, counselling, and women's reproductive health. In addition, we have set up mental health programmes in different trafficking shelters and self-care programmes for service providers. Our organisation also provides clinical supervision and counselling for trafficked victims, working closely with local psychologists in the case management.
3. What are the biggest challenges in working in this area?
- Funding - lack of funding and support
- Service providers don't always understand the importance of mental and emotional health for trafficked survivors
- Organisations don't give enough emphasis to psychosocial support and as a result many of the trafficked victims go back to being re-trafficked once back in the community
4. What are the highlights?
Witnessing the change, healing and transformation of the trafficked victims I work with. I see many of them bloom and become empowered through our trainings and programmes and it's so fulfilling to see their journey unfold.
5. What do you think works well or is important for children in their recovery and why?
- A safe environment
- Caregivers understanding of child protection and child development theory
- Good understanding and training in trauma recovery and mental health
- A loving and non-judgmental space
- Expressive art therapies or a medium for children to heal and express themselves non-verbally
- Good support system and structure
6. What knowledge or information would help you and your colleagues strengthen your work?
- A forum/network where organisations dedicated to the psychological recovery of trafficked victims could be created to increase support
- More funding bodies interested in improving mental health recovery as it is often overlooked
- More research into different ways of responding to health trauma in children, specifically in sex trafficked children and different cross cultural models of healing
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