Migrants: caring for their mental health

Personalised, anonymous and free support: this is what more than two thousand people have been able to receive through the service “HERE4U: Digital Mental Health and Remote Psychosocial Support for Young Refugees and Migrants”. UNICEF reported this, sharing the first data from the project.

Here4U: launched by UNICEF in 2020

Here4U (funded through the “PROTECT” project, supported by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs) was launched by UNICEF in 2020 in response to the growing need for mental health and psychosocial support services among young migrants and refugees in Italy. These are young people who often carry with them stories of violence, abuse and exploitation; individuals who have been exposed to different types of trauma before departure, during the journey and upon arrival, with physical and psychological needs that intersect and influence one another, and that must be recognised and addressed in a timely and appropriate manner.

Here4U is a remote digital service. According to UNICEF, the largest age group reached is 19–24 years (505 people), followed by the 16–18 age group (324).
More than 300 psychosocial and mental health interventions were delivered. Key features of Here4U include the multidisciplinary nature of the working group (psychology, psychotherapy, psychiatry, medicine, anthropology, educational and social sciences, cultural and linguistic mediation), the timely activation of local services, access to supportive information, and tailored accompaniment aimed at bringing out the resources of individuals and their local support networks.

EU-MiCare: working along the same lines

Along this same line of work—recognising the central role of mental health, not as an aspect to be neglected but as one to be fully integrated into care for migrants and refugees—stands the EU-MiCare project.
Its aim is to develop a specific training programme on these issues for mental health professionals and for other practitioners, both healthcare and non-healthcare, who work in close contact with these populations and their vulnerabilities.

EU-MiCare is funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ programme and involves six partners from five countries, all contributing to every phase of the project. Alongside Zadig as the Italian partner, the consortium includes Ethno-Medizinisches Zentrum e.V. (Germany), Polibienestar (Spain), Prolepsis (Greece), Cyprus University of Technology (Cyprus), and Syn-Eirmos, NGO of Social Solidarity (Greece).

Following an initial phase focused on analysing the context – identifying both existing training provision and unmet training needs, assessed through focus groups with professionals working in the field – a shared training proposal was developed. The drafting of training materials in the identified mental health areas is currently underway, with pathways that are both common and tailored to different professional profiles. This approach underlines the importance of multidisciplinarity in this field, with each profession playing a specific role, an approach also highlighted by the UNICEF project.

The training modules and the communication and networking tools will be accessible online through a platform developed by Zadig. This will enable distance learning, complemented by awareness-raising events and dissemination activities organised in the partner countries during the final phase of the project.

EU-MiCare is funded by the European Union. The views expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor the EACEA can be held responsible for them.