Funded by the SKala Initiative
The project enabled us to establish our IPSO Care Center Berlin as an open and friendly place that provides psychosocial support for migrants and refugees. Thanks to the support from the SKala initiative, IPSO’s counseling services were made accessible to everyone in Berlin and the surrounding areas and in their mother tongues. Nationwide awareness of Ipso-care as an online counseling platform simultaneously increased here in Germany. At the institutional level the project sought to bring about a paradigm shift in mental health care and to realise long-term integration of psychosocial counseling into the standard care provided by the health insurance funds.
2018-2021
Project period
Ca. 600
Monthly counseling sessions online
2018
Phineo WIRKT! seal
The project included:
- establishing our IPSO Care Center Berlin
- introducing native language counseling services (both in person and online) by IPSO-certified counselors
- implementing a system for guiding, supervising, skill developing and training our counselors (train-the-trainers)
- developing and implementing quality standards as well as establishing a partner network and effective publicity communication measures to reach out to the target groups
The sustainable success of the project can be seen on the one hand in the steadily increasing number of online counseling sessions, which has reached around 600 sessions per month, and on the other hand in the high demand for our advanced training courses as a psychosocial counselor using our Value Based Counseling method (VBC). This allows us to select only highly qualified applicants, especially psychologists.
Another success has been our ability to adapt quickly to changing needs. We have been able to respond appropriately to all new developments involving immigration here in our city thanks to the linguistic diversity of our trained counselors.
The recognition of our work and our Berlin Corona hotline as a system-relevant service shows how necessary our work is, especially during pandemic times. The three-year project duration enabled us to establish strong long-term cooperation with the providers of asylum accommodation as well as with migrants’ self-help organisations that continues to this day.
We would like to thank the SKala Initiative and Phineo for this great opportunity and for establishing this important contact point for those seeking help.
Funded by:
