What We Do | Site Title

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.

Psychosocial and Mental Health Center Kabul

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

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.Click here to be directed to the saba Website.

Afghanistan

Psychosocial and Mental Health Center Kabul

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. It …

Afghanistan

IPSO’s involvement in Afghanistan

Projects initially focused on introducing low-threshold psychosocial services to people with high psychosocial stressors within the state health system. These projects were financed by the EU and the Federal Foreign Office. The important role that MHPSS played for social peace in a country that had been wracked by violence and insecurity for more than forty years led us to start developing and …

Germany

City.Zen – A project by IPSO and the District Office Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg

The “City.Zen” project aims to create a neighborhood where everyone feels seen, heard, and supported. Residents of refugee shelters in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg come together with the local community through shared activities and open dialogue. These interactions help build social bridges and foster a stronger sense of togetherness. At its core, the project promotes mutual understanding, and a …

Psychosocial Resilience: Training and Support for Healthstaff in Gaza

We build the capacity of MHPSS staff working in IMC hospitals in Gaza to provide psychosocial support using Value Based Counseling, strengthen their resilience and wellbeing, and develop a suicide intervention protocol tailored to the Gaza context.

IPSO freetalk

Many people carry emotional pain alone. Displaced, isolated, facing trauma or discrimination or often unable to get help due to language barriers, long waits, or cost. IPSO freetalk offers free psychosocial counseling in a person's own language, delivered with respect and care through our Value Based Counseling VBC® method. This support stays free for users because donors fund it: reaching people …

Germany

IPSO’s involvement in Germany

IPSO’s involvement in Germany started back in 2015/16, when Germany took in almost one million refugees. During the arguments between the protagonists of a welcoming culture on the one hand and supporters of a border fence policy mobilised against it on the other, it quickly became clear that there were not enough professionals available to be able to provide psychosocial support to the arrivals. …

Germany

IPSO-support for Helfende Wände

We at Ipso accompany and support the Helfende Wände project by assisting housing providers and refugees looking for a new home in all problematic interpersonal issues that may arise while getting to know each other, being in a tenancy or living together in the same home.Matthias Freund (deutsch/englisch) Online KalenderVira …

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.

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 …

Germany

Gentle Project – Support groups for men and women 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 eleven in July …

Germany

S4S – Support For Supporters: 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 …

Iraq

Psychosocial Resilience and Capacity Building

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 of …

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 …

Germany

Psychosocial Online Counseling for Refugees in Malteser Shelters

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 the positive results and feedback from everyone involved. A national rollout started at …

Germany

Psychosocial skills for refugees living in LAF shelters

Since 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 IPSO Care Center in Berlin. It gives people who, for various reasons, cannot …

Germany

Establishing an Innovative Psychosocial Care Infrastructure in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

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 …

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 platform …

Afghanistan

“Kolba-e Ma” – Social Hubs for Afghan Returnees in Kabul and Nangahar Provinces

Afghan society has experienced large-scale population movements inside and outside the country for several decades. The project focused on supporting the reintegration of returnees which has been 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.

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 …

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.

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 IPSO.

Germany

Developing a sustainable infrastructure for Value Based Counseling for refugees and people with a migration background in Thüringen

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 simultaneously …

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.

Haiti

Sociocultural and Psychosocial Work and the Establishment of Sociocultural and Psychosocial Centers for Traumatised People

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 traumatised by the earthquake of 12 January 2010 as well as the civil war. It included establishing sociocultural and psychosocial …

Ausbildung

IPSO Academy

IPSO Academy

Our VBC training for psychologists, educators, and social workers.

Contact

If you have any questions or project inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us.