The project is a learning tool for organizations providing mental health support for migrant and refugee youth. It involves NGO partners in seven countries (Poland, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Hungary and Germany), which specialize in providing psychological counselling to migrant youth. The project also makes space for local stakeholders in each country to benefit from the professional experience of the participating organizations. Researchers vary in their judgement on mental health condition of refugees and migrants, WHO analysis show. Yet, it is established that in this population PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders and trauma-related disorders are much more frequent than in general population in Europe. The connection between mental health of migrants and their integration abilities is not yet properly reviewed. In some countries, access to mental health support for migrants is extremelly limited and competent counsellors are hard to find. The organizations participating in this project are invited to exchange competencies, tools and ways in providing psychological support to migrants, as each of them approaches the issue from a different perspective and can share unique experience. In a series of four 3-day trainings taking place in selected countries (Turkey, Greece, Germany and Poland) the organizations can get familiar with each other's working context, and its specifity, experiences and best practices. Each one is expected to present their working tools to the group. Each training enables extensive discussion on various obstacles faced by psychologists working with migrants. Young migrants and refugees are invited to share their perspective on the issue. Each training also provides space for discussion on practical arrangements and accessibility of mental health support for the beneficiary group. The three key areas around which the trainings are focussed involve: 1. Psychological help as part of systemic work with migrant youth. 2. Assisting youth victims of torture and trauma, 3. Short-term intervention in the case of youths. In addition, topics analyzed by the group will include supervision, accessibility of psychological and psychiatric help in multicultural contexts, involving volunteers and mobilizing social support in the context of youth migrant mental health needs, systemic support for families, also young single mothers, psychological first-aid. The trainings have a set format that includes presentation/workshop, discussion, study visit and a separate module relating to practical organization of psychological help (access, language, work online, safe location and other aspects). Each training lasts three days. The partners in the project share responsibility of organizing the content of events, based on their individual competencies. The purpose of this project is to increase competencies of partners involved and gain a better cross-European awareness on the system of psychological work available to migrant youth. Our long term goals are two-fold: - we wish to build partnership of more European organizations providing psychological assistance to migrant youth, gather a collection of best practices and jointly promote them in Europe, - we wish to encourage local stakeholders to take more consideration of mental health needs of migrant youth. We hope that state systems of this assistance are improved in countries, where they are not developed yet. We also aim at promoting awareness of the importance of mental health among migrant integration professionals and stakeholders.
We wanted to: - learn what psychologists working with migrants in other countries do - what are their working methods - learn, how the psychological support is provided in other countries, in a systemic way - find out, how psychologists and social workers approach important barriers that are present in mental health support: language and cultural barriers - we also just wanted to share what we ourselves know and have learned - be inspired - seek solutions and approaches together.
Prior to applying for the project PFM has met with a few of the partners (most importantly - IPSO from Germany) and came to conclusion that it would be a very important added value to create a communication and mutual learning platform for psychologists working with migrants, particularly migrant youth - as youth constitutes a significant proportion of migrant populations, and youth psychologists are not as common as those working with adults. With changing populations in receiving countries (Syrians, Afghans), quality skills and experience of other organizations seemed attractive to us. We wanted to exchange experiences and learn from those who have more extensive experience. IPSO was standing out in the arena of NGOs, as it was an organization focussing on psychological support for persons of various countries. But we also identified other partners with uniques experiences: like Cordelia working with the victims of torture in Hungary, or ASAM in Turkey, working with large number of beneficiaries in a set up that is neighbouring to a war zone. We also felt that while opportunities for activists and social staff to exchange practices are many, there is not so many learning options for psychological staff - we wanted to have one.