Community Reintegration

examining whether or not individual counseling could be useful in promoting community reintegration through psychosocial adjustment. In an RCT in Uganda, Ertl and colleagues (2011) found that groups exposed to short-term, narrative-based trauma therapy experienced a greater reduction in PTSD symptoms than groups in academic catch-up programs, or on the waitlist, in as few as eight sessions. These results are corroborated by findings from an RTC in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which a similar narrative-based treatment was used specifically for ex-combatants (Hermenau, Hecker, Schaal, Maedl, & Elbert, 2013). Hermenau and colleagues (2013) found that those who participated in the therapy showed reduced PTSD symptoms, as well as reduced contact with current combatants, which may promote community reintegration by reducing the likelihood that the child will return to the armed forces. Overall, these two studies suggest that individual

For example, research on western-based individual interventions is expanding despite results that indicate that culturally situated interventions, like cleansing rituals, are just as effective (Schultz, 2015) and feedback from people native to the areas who state that the communities would rather focus on group or community-based interventions (Betancourt et al., 2012). This paper does not escape this criticism, as the guidelines used to examine community reintegration practices were developed by a USAID, which is an agency within the United States government (Williamson, 2006). The creation of guidelines informed by the countries carrying out these practices would be an important step in ensuring that the needs and values of these countries are being met, without the prescription of western