The model project to improve psychotherapeutic care for refugees enters a new phase.
Since 2017, in a network of local partners vivo built up a model project that aims to a better integration of the approximately 1.000 burdened refugees living in the county of Konstanz into the public mental health care system. In close cooperation and with financial support of the county and community administrations, this project developed, implemented and evaluated measures that overcome barriers of access to and of supply of psychotherapeutic services. Trained and continuously supervised peers (“Gesundheitspaten”, i.e. well integrated and psychologically stable refugees) are employed to support their fellow refugees in utilizing the public health services. A pool of trained interpreters was built up. A central office manages registrations, coordinates recruitment, training, assignment and supervision of peers and interpreters; in addition, training and technical support of therapists working in the public health care system is coordinated. Since October 2020, a joint project with the University of Konstanz funded by the EC’s Asylum-, Migration- and Integration-Fonds (AMIF) supports the project. In the next two years, the project aims to scale up its work and to evaluate its outcome in scientific studies.
The model project to improve psychotherapeutic care for refugees enters a new phase.
Since 2017, in a network of local partners vivo built up a model project that aims to a better integration of the approximately 1.000 burdened refugees living in the county of Konstanz into the public mental health care system. In close cooperation and with financial support of the county and community administrations, this project developed, implemented and evaluated measures that overcome barriers of access to and of supply of psychotherapeutic services. Trained and continuously supervised peers (“Gesundheitspaten”, i.e. well integrated and psychologically stable refugees) are employed to support their fellow refugees in utilizing the public health services. A pool of trained interpreters was built up. A central office manages registrations, coordinates recruitment, training, assignment and supervision of peers and interpreters; in addition, training and technical support of therapists working in the public health care system is coordinated. Since October 2020, a joint project with the University of Konstanz funded by the EC’s Asylum-, Migration- and Integration-Fonds (AMIF) supports the project. In the next two years, the project aims to scale up its work and to evaluate its outcome in scientific studies.
