With Dr. Lisa Andermann, MPhil, MDCM, FRCPC and Norma Hannant, MSW RSW
October 29, 2025
Description:
This practical webinar equips service providers with tools to better understand and respond to the complex needs of immigrants and refugees who have experienced trauma. Using a trauma-informed lens and the bio-psycho-social-spiritual model, we explore how trauma impacts the whole person—body, mind, relationships, and sense of meaning.
Viewers will learn to:
- Recognize signs of trauma responses in refugee clients.
- Understand the Window of Tolerance and how to support clients in staying regulated during stress
- Introduce simple distress tolerance skills that promote emotional stability.
- Appreciate the vital role of social connection and community in healing.
- Foster collaboration with health and mental health professionals to support holistic care.
- Apply culturally sensitive, strengths-based strategies to promote resilience and well-being.
Presenters:
Dr. Lisa Andermann, MPhil, MDCM, FRCPC
Dr. Andermann, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto (UofT) and Co-Chair of the Equity and Inclusion Council (UofT). She is also the Director of the Toronto Addis Ababa Psychiatry Program.
In addition to her work at the Mount Sinai Ethnocultural Assertive Community Treatment, Dr. Andermann is a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Canadian Centre for Victims of Torture; and with the Northern Psychiatric Outreach Program providing outreach to remote communities on Baffin Island, Ontario. She co-edited a book entitled Refuge and Resilience: Promoting Resilience and Mental Health among Refugees and Forced Migrants (Springer, 2014). She is a former Board Member of the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture and current Board Member with the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry.
She has an undergraduate degree in Anthropology from McGill University, where she completed her medical studies, and a graduate degree in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University.
Norma Hannant, MSW RSW
Norma Hannant is a social worker at the New Beginnings Clinic in the Mood and Anxiety Services at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). She provides mental health support for refugees and immigrants using a trauma-informed, culturally sensitive, anti-oppressive lens rooted in evidence-based practices.
Norma has worked in the mental health sector for over 20 years. She has experience in hospital-based settings, community-based counselling agencies and child and family services. She has taught and coordinated mental health workshops in Mexico, Chile and Brazil on the shared care model, psychosocial rehabilitation and stigma.