14 December 2012

Last month, Eurodiaconia met with a team from Helsinki Deaconess Institute who have recently completed a project “The Assessment of the Need for Treatment of Tortured and Severely Traumatised Asylum seeking and Refugee Children and Youth and Their Rehabilitation”, funded by Helsinki Deaconess Institute and the European Refugee Fund, which operated between 2010−2012. The target group of the project was children and youth who are directly or indirectly traumatized by torture or war, who have arrived in Finland unaccompanied or with their families as asylum-seekers or refugees. The goal of the project was to develop specialized child and youth psychiatric services for this group.

A self-evaluation report was one of the goals for the final year of the project. It involved a questionnaire or interview conducted for partners involved in the project. Partners were people who admitted patients to the project, mainly nurses or public health nurses from the centres for asylum-seekers. Experiences were also collected from other people with whom the project personnel dealt related to the treatment of the patients. These people are personnel from public health child and youth psychiatry, child welfare service operators, social workers and pupil welfare service operators and lawyers. In addition to this, experiences from the project were collected from the steering group or management of Helsinki Deaconess Institute, project personnel and patients.

The questionnaire and interviews were carried out among 34 persons, out of which 9 were project partners, ten steering group/management members and five project personnel. Ten patients gave feedback. As a conclusion, based on the self evaluation, the project can be considered as successful! Three distinctive factors can be distinguished as part of the success. Firstly the project was based on a solid need experienced by multiple parties, secondly there were knowledgeable and committed personnel involved, and thirdly, the project services were delivered in a “patient-driven” way. These factors were supported by the organization which was committed to the project and in the learning-process of the project.

A central point for development was organizing an established, permanent service for the target group integrated in the Rehabilitation Centre for the Torture Survivors. Based on the experiences of the project, HDI recommends producing a flexible and holistic service for the target group, funded and focalized nationwide consultation and training subject to continuous development as well as family centred work and service counselling to be integrated in the treatment of the target group.

To read the final report in Finnish click here

28 November 2012

The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade has awarded Eurodiaconia member the Ecumenical Humanitarian Organisation (EHO) in Novi Sad, Serbia, the “Making the Difference” Award, for the tangible results achieved and for their outstanding efforts in increasing the living standard of Roma in Vojvodina through the project on “Social Inclusion and Improvement of Housing Conditions for Roma in Vojvodina”.  EHO will receive the Award at the Awards Ceremony for Best practices from 2012 funding portfolio “Making a Difference, Public Outreach, Civic Responsibility”. Congratulations to EHO and all the staff!