In cooperation with and funded by Malteser Werke
In this pilot project, IPSO, in cooperation with Malteser Werke, has been training sixteen people with a migration or refugee background who have had previous training in education, psychology or social work in Value Based Counseling since February 2019. Ten graduates from the one-year full-time training course in Rostock were employed as psychosocial counselors at Malteser Werke and after the pilot project was completed (end of 2021), seven more, who will continue to receive professional support from IPSO. They also support refugees in asylum centers throughout Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
16
trained VBC counselors and 10 of them employed in Malteser facilities (2018-2021)
2,100
mental health awareness talks (2018-2021)
500
people counseled during training - in 16 languages
During the practical part of their one-year full-time training (three-months intensive training and nine-months supervised practice), the participants counseled more than 500 people in more than sixteen languages. More than 2,100 consultation sessions about mental health were also held in the refugee shelters.
With funding from the state, a psychosocial counseling center modelled on our IPSO Care Center in Thüringen was established in Rostock in 2022. The project significantly improves psychosocial care for refugees and also contributes to successfully integrating migrants in two ways: Firstly and with regard to those seeking support, they are supported by people with similar cultural and experience horizons in their own mother tongue, which immediately creates trust and has an integrating effect. Secondly, with regard to the counselors who are migrants themselves and have sometimes also experienced flight, they can involve their skills particularly well in this newly created working environment and are therefore qualified for the German labour market, which are the best integration conditions. In fact, all graduates found jobs immediately after graduating, many of them also with Malteser Werke. This project points to a potential in migration societies that needs to be further developed in many ways.
An external evaluation was carried out by Syspons as part of this joint project (see Evaluation of Psychosocial Counseling, final report June 2021). The new project in MV has been evaluated again by Syspons since 2022.
Contact partner:
Charleen Brugmann
Manager of the migration office in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
In cooperation with and funded by:
