Trauma day treatment for young people with a refugee background
| Period | 2024 |
| Location | Brussels (with participants from all over Belgium) |
| With the support of | UCB Community Health Fund managed by the King Baudouin Foundation |
For whom?
- Young people with a refugee background (15-24 years) in Belgium: both young people with families and unaccompanied minors
- Care providers and counselors
What?
Refugees often suffer from (complex) trauma and other serious mental disorders, while finding it more difficult than other groups in society to access appropriate counselling. Unaccompanied minors are an especially vulnerable group, as they are in full development in a bi-cultural and multilingual context.
Solentra’s intensive trauma day clinic offers a tailor-made treatment that heals trauma, prevents additional trauma and facilitates integration. By increasing young people’s resilience and breaking the vicious circle of unnecessary referrals, they are less likely to drop out of therapy, work or school.
Effective trauma treatment requires creating perspectives for the future and restoring trust in others. Support and bridge figures play an important role here. Therefore, we want to involve them in the treatment as much as possible.
Specific activities:
- During the participants’ intake, we gauge their needs and determine which thematic sessions might be relevant to them.
- For three months, they then attend specialised intensive trauma day treatments once or twice a week. During open group sessions, they work on themes that address their resilience and strengthen their sense of control over their lives. The sessions are supervised by an ethnopsychologist or transcultural psychologist with interpreter, and may include various interventions, such as musical or body-oriented therapy.
- We also mobilise the network around refugees through community-based consultations and capacity building.