Free Peer Healing for Refugee Torture Survivors (Bay Area) | CST
The Center for Survivors of Torture (CST), based at AACI (Asian Americans for Community Involvement) in San Jose, provides free legal and mental health services and peer-based community programming for survivors of torture, persecution, and political violence — primarily refugees and asylum seekers in the San Francisco Bay Area. CST combines individual counseling, peer support groups, social work case management, legal advocacy, and a sustained community of survivors from across the world.
What to Expect
CST’s peer support groups bring together small groups of survivors who share both the experience of torture and broadly similar demographic or cultural context. Groups meet weekly or biweekly and combine peer sharing with structured therapeutic content delivered by CST clinicians and trained peer counselors. Beyond the support groups, CST provides individual therapy, family counseling, social work support (housing, food access, medical referrals, navigation of public benefits), legal advocacy for asylum claims, and a broader community of survivors who participate in CST events and cultural programming. The combination of clinical depth and peer community is intentional and central to the CST model.
Who This Group Is For
CST serves survivors of torture, political persecution, and severe violence — primarily refugees and asylum seekers — living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Survivors come from countries across Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Programs are available in multiple languages, and CST staff include native speakers of many of the languages of refugee survivor communities in the Bay Area. CST also supports family members of survivors and accepts community referrals from refugee resettlement agencies, legal aid organizations, healthcare providers, and other community partners.
Why Peer Support Works
Refugees who have survived torture or extreme political violence often describe the particular kind of isolation that comes from being in a new country, often unable to fully discuss their experiences with people who haven’t lived through similar realities. CST’s peer support model addresses that directly — bringing survivors together with others who understand both the experience of torture and the broader context of forced displacement and resettlement. Many survivors describe their CST group as one of the only places they could speak openly about what they had been through.
How to Join
CST services are free. Visit aaci.org/behavioral-health/cst (or cstnet.org for additional centers) to learn about programs, request services, and contact staff. The CST at AACI is based in San Jose, California, and serves survivors across the Bay Area. Other Centers for Survivors of Torture operate in cities across the U.S. and can be found through the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs.