Where We Operate
What We Do
Our activities are centred on psychosocial support (MHPSS) and here we focus on Value Based Counseling (VBC) according to the method we developed. Our international involvement includes local capacity building, low-threshold self-help, and psychosocial peacebuilding. We have been working on developing an innovative care structure for refugees in Germany since 2015/16: We use resources from a migration society for successful integration.
Selected Projects
Afghanistan
Germany
Haiti
International
Iraq
Ukraine
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Germany
saba app: a pilot project for improved access to mental health care for refugees
Germany
saba app: a pilot project for improved access to mental health care for refugees
The aim of the project is to offer psychosocial support to as many people with refugee or migration background in Germany as possible – at a low threshold, digitally and individually.
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Germany
Community for Tomorrow - A pilot project by IPSO and the District Office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
Germany
Community for Tomorrow - A pilot project by IPSO and the District Office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
Our project ‘Community for Tomorrow’ starts in September 2024. It aims to empower the residents of the shelters in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg to interact with their communities in a trauma-sensitive and resilience-promoting way, thereby creating a space of mutual support, belonging, dignity and safety.
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Germany
Ipso-support for Helfende Wände
Germany
Ipso-support for Helfende Wände
Текст українською нижчеs
Helfende Wände is an initiative of Wunderflats and the non-profit organization ProjectTogether. The project is jointly funded by the European Union and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF). In this project, people offering accommodation are connected with…
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Afghanistan
Psychosocial and Mental Health Center Kabul
Afghanistan
Psychosocial and Mental Health Center Kabul
After our IPSO Afghanistan NGO was founded, 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…
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Germany
Developing a Sustainable VBC Infrastructure for Providing Psychosocial Care to Refugees and People with a Migration Background in Hamburg
Germany
Developing a Sustainable VBC Infrastructure for Providing Psychosocial Care to Refugees and People with a Migration Background in Hamburg
The aim of this work is to develop sustainable skills and structures by introducing low-threshold psychosocial support for refugees and people with a migration background in Hamburg, which will complement the psychosocial centers: low-threshold psychosocial support as an aid for self-help, which has an impact at individual, community and societal levels.
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Germany
VBC Training and Employing Ukrainian Psychologists to Provide Psychosocial Support to Refugees in Germany
Germany
VBC Training and Employing Ukrainian Psychologists to Provide Psychosocial Support to Refugees in Germany
This project focuses on the advanced training of experienced Ukrainian psychologists in VBC and their subsequent employment (10 full-time positions) for providing psychosocial support to Ukrainians through individual counseling. The certified counselors work online from the care points in the asylum shelters and in Berlin as well as in large arrival centres such as Tegel Airport with around…
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Germany
Gentle Project - Support Groups for Men and Women in LAF Shelters Against Domestic Violence
Germany
Gentle Project - Support Groups for Men and Women in LAF Shelters Against Domestic Violence
The “Gentle Project”, which has been implemented in Berlin accommodation since October 2022 with support from the State Office for Refugee Affairs and was expanded to include Ukrainian and Russian refugees in July 2023, provides the environment needed for dealing with the taboo topic of domestic violence. More LAF accommodations have been successively integrated and there were…
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Germany
S4S – Support For Supporters: RAZOM - Psychosocial Support for Full-time and Voluntary Supporters Helping Refugees – Focusing on Ukraine
Germany
S4S – Support For Supporters: RAZOM - Psychosocial Support for Full-time and Voluntary Supporters Helping Refugees – Focusing on Ukraine
The many people who fled to Germany in 2015 and 2016 and – more recently – the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine that began on February 24, 2022, triggered an impressive wave of solidarity and support. As a humanitarian organisation that has developed the Value Based Counseling (VBC) method, an innovative form of support for people with flight and migration experiences who are counseled by…
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Iraq
Psychosocial Resilience and Capacity Building in North-West Iraq
Iraq
Psychosocial Resilience and Capacity Building in North-West Iraq
Since the end of large-scale military operations against ISIL in 2017, Iraq has made significant reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts: Roads have been restored, local markets reopened, public water and electricity services restored, and housing, health facilities and schools rebuilt. As of June 2022, of the six million people displaced as a result of ISIL’s June 2014 takeover of much…
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International
Mental Health and Psychosocial Well-being for All Through a Professional and Accessible Digital Platform
International
Mental Health and Psychosocial Well-being for All Through a Professional and Accessible Digital Platform
This project aimed to support disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, especially migrants and refugees, through low-threshold access to VBC and providing individual counseling as well as group sessions. We established a multicultural team of highly professional counselors qualified in our VBC method who used their Arabic, Dari, English, Farsi, Greek, Hindi, Italian and Portuguese mother tongues…
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Germany
Psychosocial Online Counseling for Refugees in Malteser Shelters in North Rhine-Westphalia and, in Nationwide Rollout, in Saxony, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria
Germany
Psychosocial Online Counseling for Refugees in Malteser Shelters in North Rhine-Westphalia and, in Nationwide Rollout, in Saxony, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria
In cooperation with Malteser Werke IPSO has been providing care points for psychosocial counseling in Malteser shelters in North Rhine-Westphalia since January 2021 through a specially-developed sub-domain of ipso-care.com. The pilot project was extended by two more years at the end of 2021 due to…
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Germany
Psychosocial Skills for Refugees Living in LAF Shelters
Germany
Psychosocial Skills for Refugees Living in LAF Shelters
https://ipso-care.com/home.htmlSince 2018, our experienced project team has been regularly visiting all of the Berlin refugee shelters administered by LAF in Berlin on a rotating basis to provide on-site psychosocial counseling and various group services. The project is an important and effective addition to the work of the counselors at the …
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Germany
Establishing an Innovative Psychosocial Care Infrastructure in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern – A Cooperative Project between IPSO and Malteser Werke
Germany
Establishing an Innovative Psychosocial Care Infrastructure in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern – A Cooperative Project between IPSO and 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…
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Germany
Face-to-face Empowerment – Establishing a Psychosocial Counseling Center For and With People With a Flight/Migration History in Berlin
Germany
Face-to-face Empowerment – Establishing a Psychosocial Counseling Center For and With People With a Flight/Migration History in Berlin
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…
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Afghanistan
"Kolba-e Ma" - Social Hubs for Afghan Returnees in Kabul and Nangahar Provinces
Afghanistan
"Kolba-e Ma" - Social Hubs for Afghan Returnees in Kabul and Nangahar Provinces
The Afghan society has experienced large-scale population movements inside and outside the country for several decades. The project is focused on supporting the reintegration of returnees which is a big challenge for both, returnees as well as host communities, not only in social-cultural terms but also with regard to their integration into local labour markets in Kabul and Nangarhar.
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Afghanistan
Psychosocial Support for IDPs and Returnees in Balkh, Kabul and Nangarhar
Afghanistan
Psychosocial Support for IDPs and Returnees in Balkh, Kabul and Nangarhar
Statistics from the International Organization for Migration show that between 2012 and 2019 more than 3 million Afghans returned to Afghanistan from neighbouring and other foreign countries. More than 4 million people were displaced internally during the same period. Many of them lived in and are still living in makeshift camps that are notorious for their cramped living conditions and lack of…
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Germany
Model Project for Preventing Radicalisation: Face-to-face Empowerment Against Islamist Orientation
Germany
Model Project for Preventing Radicalisation: Face-to-face Empowerment Against Islamist Orientation
IPSO’s model project for preventing radicalisation was aimed at young people between 17–27 who are at risk, members and sympathisers of radical scenes and groups and their parents, family members and other related people.
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Ukraine
Psychosocial Care for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and War-affected Population in Ukraine
Ukraine
Psychosocial Care for Internally Displaced People (IDPs) and War-affected Population in Ukraine
The project is a joint initiative of the Rotary Clubs of Kharkiv and Konstanz-Mainau, Ukrainian mental health specialists Volodymyr Korostiy, Oleksandr Polishchuk, Oksana Genderetska and Anna Krapivnyk from Bohomolets Kyiv National Medical University, Kharkiv National Medical University, Chernivstsi Bukovyna State Medical University, and Inge Missmahl, founder and Managing Director of…
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Germany
Developing a Sustainable Infrastructure for Value Based Counseling for the Psychosocial Care of Refugees and People with a Migration Background in Thuringen
Germany
Developing a Sustainable Infrastructure for Value Based Counseling for the Psychosocial Care of Refugees and People with a Migration Background in Thuringen
The “Psychosocial counseling and support for refugees/people with experience of flight and migration” project started in 2016 to 2017 with the advanced training of 30 refugees living in Thuringen to become psychosocial counselors in order to establish a comprehensive, low-threshold, mother-tongue and culturally sensitive psychosocial counseling network for refugees in Thuringen and…
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Afghanistan
The "Cultural Container Project" and its First Implementation in Ten Provinces of Afghanistan
Afghanistan
The "Cultural Container Project" and its First Implementation in Ten Provinces of Afghanistan
The aim of the “Cultural Container Project” was to strengthen civil society and promote social peace and social cohesion, which we and our teams in Afghanistan were able to implement very successfully for the first time in ten provinces in 2015 and 2016: Badakhshan, Balkh, Bamyan, Herat, Jawzjan, Kabul, Kandahar, Kapisa, Laghman and Nangarhar.
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Haiti
Sociocultural and Psychosocial Work and the Establishment of Sociocultural and Psychosocial Centers for Traumatised People in the Earthquake Region of Haiti
Haiti
Sociocultural and Psychosocial Work and the Establishment of Sociocultural and Psychosocial Centers for Traumatised People in the Earthquake Region of Haiti
The project, implemented in cooperation with Caritas international, was intended as a sustainable contribution to helping the Haitian population to help themselves, i.e. social and psychosocial capacity development that would provide support and care to people…
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All Projects
Afghanistan
Integrating our psychodynamic, short-term intervention method – Value Based Counseling (VBC) – into Afghanistan's national health system: in the Basic Package of Health Services (BPHS), the Essential Package of Hospital Services (EPHS) and the national mental health strategy
Funded by the EU and the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany
2011
-
2016
Germany
Psychosocial counseling and support for refugees provided by refugees in Hamburg
Funded by the Michael Otto Stiftung
2016
-
heute
Afghanistan
Advanced training programme for psychosocial counselors in our VBC method and developing a train-the-trainers system for sustainability in Afghanistan
Funded by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany
2011
-
2016
Haiti
Establishing psychosocial centres for traumatised people in the earthquake region of Haiti
In cooperation with Caritas International
2011
-
2013
Afghanistan
Promotion of peace and stabilisation of Afghanistan through cultural dialogue and psycho-social support
Funded by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany
2013
-
2016
Afghanistan
Implementing the Cultural Container Project in Afghanistan, in the Badakhshan, Balkh, Bamyan, Herat, Jawzjan, Kabul, Kandahar, Kapisa, Laghman und Nangarhar provinces
2013
-
2021
Afghanistan
Afghanistan – Unity in Cultural Diversity. Visiting the Exhibitions of the Cultural Containers in Kabul, Bamiyan, Herat, Balkh, Badakshan and Nangarhar. A 'Cultural Containers' project, a sub-project of promoting peace and stabilisation in Afghanistan through cultural dialogue and psychosocial support
Funded by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany
2014
Germany
Structural and skills development for psychosocial counseling by and for refugees in Thuringen, establishing a counseling centre in Erfurt
Funded by the Ministry for Labour, Social Affairs, Health, Women and Family in Thüringen
01.01.2016
-
31.12.2023
Germany
AZAV-certified training as VBC counselors for foreign professionals qualified in the education, psychology and social work sectors
Funded by the employment agencies through education vouchers
01.04.2016
-
31.03.2019
Afghanistan
Psychosocial and Mental Health Center Kabul
Funded by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany
2016
-
2022
Germany
Culturally sensitive psychosocial counseling for and by refugees
Funded by the State Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs, Health, Women and Family in Brandenburg
2017
-
2018
Ukraine
Psychosocial care for IDPs (internally displaced persons) and war-affected population
An initiative of the Rotary Clubs from Kharkiv and Constance-Mainau
2017
-
2019
Germany
Model project for preventing radicalisation: Face-to-face empowerment – Against Islamist orientation
Funded as part of the Live Democracy! project by the Federal Republic of Germany's Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth
01.09.2017
-
31.12.2019
Germany
Promoting the resilience of refugees/migrants – effectiveness study into the use of mother-tongue counselors
Funded by the Federal Ministry of Health of the Federal Republic of Germany. In cooperation with Charité, Berlin
2017
-
2020
Afghanistan
Professional psychosocial care in Women Protection Centres and Family Guidance Centres of Afghanistan
Funded by The Colombo Plan for Cooperative Economic and Social Development in Asia and the Pacific, with support from U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL)
01.01.2017
-
31.12.2021
Germany
Psychosocial support to Syria refugees in Lebanon: Online counseling provided by Syria counselors based in Germany
Funded by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa), with support from the German Federal Foreign Office
2018
Afghanistan
Psychosocial support for IDPs and returnees in Kabul, Nangarhar and Balkh
Funded by Caritas Germany – Caritas international, with support from GIZ
01.01.2018
-
30.06.2020
Afghanistan
‘Kolba-e Ma.’ Social Hubs for Afghan returnees in Kabul and Nangahar provinces
Funded by GIZ, with support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Programme ‘Migration for Development’ (PME)
01.01.2018
-
31.8.2020
International
Psychosocial support for refugees in Jordan through online counseling by Syrian counselors based in Germany
In cooperation with INTERSOS, Jordan. Funded by the Kamynu Trust
2018
-
2020
Germany
Face-to-face empowerment: Establishing a psychosocial counseling centre for and with people with a flight/migration history in Berlin
Funded by the SKala Initiative
01.05.2018
-
30.04.2021
Germany
Establishing a psychosocial care infrastructure in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern – A cooperative project between IPSO and Malteser Werke
In cooperation with and funded by Malteser Werke
2018
-
2021
Germany
Psychosocial skills for refugees living in LAF shelters
Funded by the Berlin State Office for Refugee Affairs (LAF)
01.01.2018
-
31.12.2023
Afghanistan
Support to psychosocial competence, participation and inclusion in Afghan society
Funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, Support to peace mediation, crisis prevention, stabilisation and post-conflict peacebuilding
01.01.2019
-
31.12.2020
Afghanistan
Psychosocial Center Kabul
Funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, Support to peace mediation, crisis prevention, stabilisation and post-conflict peacebuilding
01.01.2019
-
31.12.2020
Germany
Psychosocial online counseling for refugees in Malteser shelters in North Rhine-Westphalia and, in nationwide rollout, in Saxony, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria
In cooperation with Malteser Werke, with partial funding from the NRW Social Welfare Foundation (December 2020 - December 2021) and the Porticus Foundation (January 2022 - December 2023)
01.12.2020
-
31.12.2023
Afghanistan
Reintegration of returnees into the socio-economic environment of Afghanistan
Funded by GIZ, with support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Programme ‘Migration for Development’ (PME), de facto suspended at the behest of the donor immediately after the Taliban assumed power on August 15, 2021
31.12.2020
-
originally 31.11.2021
Afghanistan
Psychosocial support for IDPs and returnees living in informal settlements in Kabul
Funded by Caritas Deutschland – Caritas international, with support from GIZ, de facto suspended at the behest of the donor immediately after the Taliban assumed power on August 15, 2021
01.01.2021
-
originally 31.12.2021
Afghanistan
Strengthening of psychosocial competence and resilience
Funded by German Federal Foreign Office, Support to peace mediation, crisis prevention, stabilisation and post-conflict peacebuilding
01.01.2021
-
31.12.2022
Afghanistan
Psychosocial Care and e-Care Center for Afghanistan
Funded by the German Federal Foreign Office, Support to peace mediation, crisis prevention, stabilisation and post-conflict peacebuilding
01.01.2021
-
31.12.2022
International
Mental health and psychosocial well-being for all through a professional and accessible digital platform
Funded by Peloton
2021
-
2022
Iraq
Psychosocial resilience and capacity building in North-West Iraq
For Caritas Iraq. In cooperation with and funded by Caritas Germany – Caritas international, with support from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)
2021
-
2023
Syria
Psychosocial resilience and capacity building in North-East Syria
Funded by GIZ
2022
Afghanistan
Sociocultural dialogues for peace and reconciliation in Afghan communities
Funded by the EU
01.01.2022
-
31.12.2022
Afghanistan
‘De-Sule-Hujra/Hujra-e-Sulh.’ Sociocultural dialogues towards peace and reconciliation
Funded by the European Union, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) Global Europe
29.3.2022
-
28.9.2023
Germany
SUPPORT FOR SUPPORTERS: RAZOM – Psychosocial support for full-time and voluntary supporters helping refugees – Focused on Ukraine
Funded by the Theodor Springmann Stiftung up to 31.03.2023; then part of Ukrainehilfe, Hamburg and Alliance4Ukraine/Welcome Alliance, Berlin
Since 01.04.2022
Afghanistan
Psychosocial support to returnees, IDPs and host communities at Sheikh Mesri and Daman in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan
Funded by UNHCR, Co-PROSPER framework
11.09.2022
-
31.12.2022
Germany
Gentle project – Support groups for men and women in LAF shelters against domestic violence
Funded by LAF, Berlin
01.09.2022
-
31.12.2023
Germany
Training and employment of Ukrainian professionals in the psychology and psychotherapy sectors
In cooperation with Malteser Werke
2022
-
2024
Afghanistan
Psychosocial and Mental Health Center Kabul
Continued in cooperation with Caritas international
2023
-
to date
Swiss
VBC advanced training by and for people with refugee and migration backgrounds in Switzerland within the context of the pilot project ComPaxion Aargau and Zug
In cooperation with Paxion
2023
-
2025
Contact
If you have any questions or project inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us.