Psychosocial and Mental Health Center Kabul

Supported by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany up to 2022 and continued by our partner organization Ipso Afghanistan in cooperation with Caritas international, Schmitz-Stiftungen and other donors since then.

VBC was integrated into the Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS) in 2011–2016 with support from the EU and the Federal Foreign Office. The state health system’s capacities improved considerably during this time, but they still showed great potential for expansion in view of the huge need for action. This is why we established our Psychosocial and Mental Health Center Kabul in 2016 and handed over its management to Ipso Afghanistan as a partner organization in 2022. It provides online counseling services for clients throughout Afghanistan and it provides more comprehensive mental health services than are available in largely overcrowded and overburdened government clinics.

The center includes a day care facility, whose services include support groups and life skills groups. A psychiatric examination and, if needed, care are provided by psychiatrists, and a medical assessment of psychosomatic symptoms is also provided by doctors.

The need for the centre’s services is greater today than ever before. We are pleased and grateful that our partner organisation Ipso Afghanistan has been able to maintain operations with funding from Caritas international and other donors despite the difficult political conditions that humanitarian projects currently find themselves in when working in Afghanistan. We would also like to thank the Federal Foreign Office, which made founding the centre possible in 2016 and supported us up to 2022.

Publications:

• Value-based Counseling at the Psychosocial and Mental Health Center Kabul. Funded by the German Foreign Office, © 2018 IPSO gGmbH
• Psychosocial Counseling and Mental Health Center Kabul. A contribution to combating the causes of flight and the stabilization and integration of the returnees and their families funded by the German Foreign Office and implemented by Ipso. Funded by the German Foreign Office, © 2017 IPSO gGmbH

Ipso Afghanistan needs your support to be able to run the project in the future!