Setting & local team
RECRUITMENT
International Psychosocial Organization (Ipso gGmbH) conducted the recruitment, counselling interventions and follow-up assessments at an Ipso Care Center located in Berlin. All the counseling sessions, baseline and follow-up diagnostic assessments were conducted by a group of 18 experienced counselors working on a salary basis. They had undergone a one-year full-time training in VBC and received weekly regular technical supervision for their counseling by trained supervisors. Counselors documented every case and every session. They further received a three-day training workshop and regular supervision by an experienced doctoral-level clinical researcher, who was specialized in work with migrants and refugees, to carry out structured interviews based on questionnaires, as not all participants were sufficiently literate to fill in the questionnaires themselves. The tasks of assessing and of counseling a client were assigned to different counselors, based on their availability. Clients and counselors were matched in terms of gender, language and cultural background. Counseling sessions were conducted in Arabic, Dari, Farsi, Kurdish, French, German, Maninka, Pular, or Sousou. 