Counselling
The Counselling Department's overal aim is assisting refugees and asylum seekers to become mentally prepared and empowered to face the challenges of displacement. It forms a complementary unit with Legal Aid. Our daily activities include psychosocial counselling, the registration of clients, and performing needs and psychological assessment.
Focus of work
Counselling – we provide individual and group counseling and guidance to refugees and asylum seekers.
We do psychological testing to help in diagnosis, understanding the presenting problem, and to help in designing the intervention. In addition we do individual and group psychotherapy through the use of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques to aid refugees adjust mentally and behaviorally with respect to their traumatic experiences in addition to other mental health disorders.
Social service provision – we carry out home visits to help assess refugees’ needs and network with partner organisations to ensure that refugees receive basics they need, which include temporary accommodation, food and access to health facilities.
Education and training in mental health – we educate target groups on mental health disorders, coping mechanisms, the importance of supporting each other from the family to the larger community and steps the y can take to get professional assistance. We also train them in basic counselling skills, family life education and adolescent reproductive health.
Achievements or impact of work
- Improvement in coping attitudes – Refugees are more positive towards life and hold more realistic expectations of the service providers.
- Improving mental health. In this area, the access to professionals in the mental health field has led to improving mental health amongst the refugees.
- Establishment of a functional referral system. We have established a network of various professionals and institutions to whom we make referrals in case we are unable to handle clients.
Long-term goals
While resources may be limited, the Counselling section hopes to expand into a full department in its own right to provide dedicated and effective mental healthcare for refugees and asylum seekers. Other targets include:
- Establishment of self-reliant community-based structures for psychosocial service provision for our target groups.
- To carry out research on prevalence of mental health disorders among refugee, asylum seeker and IDP populations.
- Expansion of activities to include internally displaced persons.
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