STRENGTHS Project - Partners

Partners

• Vrije Universiteit, Department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology

  Academic research and education at VU University is characterised by a high level of ambition, and encourages free and open communications and ideas.

  The Department of Clinical Psychology is embedded in the Institute for Health Research and Care. With more than 150 papers in international scientific journals per year the department is one of the leading research groups worldwide in psychotherapies on depression and other common mental disorders. It is specialized in randomized trials and meta-analyses of psychotherapy for common mental disorders, e-mental health, low-intensity interventions for common mental disorders in primary care, and prevention of depressive disorders. It has developed, evaluated (clinical and cost-effectiveness studies) and implemented face-to face and online low-intensity interventions for common mental. The department has built a strong network of partnerships around the world with researchers from the US, Europe, Australia, and China as well as collaborations with internationally renowned organizations like the WHO.

  Principal investigator & contact: Prof. Dr. Marit Sijbrandij

• War Child Holland

  War Child Holland is founded and registered in the Netherlands, with country branch offices in Burundi, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lebanon, occupied Palestinian territories, South Sudan, Sri Lanka and Uganda. The Research and Development department is located in War Child Holland’s main office in Amsterdam. War Child is an organisation that works exclusively to improve the lives of children and communities affected by conflict. War Child’s research and development agenda aims to create a multi-level care system that will include evidence-based interventions, alongside methods to improve access, acceptability, and quality. Within STRENGTH War Child is responsible for the adaptation and evaluation an intervention for children and adolescents in Lebanon, i.e. Helping Young Adolescents Cope.

  Principal investigator & contact: Dr. Mark Jordans | mark.jordans@warchild.nl | 020 422 7777

• The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. It also has a mandate to help stateless people.

  Since 1950, the agency has helped tens of millions of people restart their lives. Today, a staff of more than 9,300 people in 123 countries continues to help and protect millions of refugees, returnees, internally displaced and stateless people.

  Mental health and psychosocial support receives increasing attention and in 2013 UNHCR launched its Operational Guidance of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Programming in Refugee Operations. Mental health and Psychosocial support does not constitute a separate sector or subsector, but is functionally integrated in programmes for public health, community based protection, child protection and SGBV prevention and response. Since 2015, UNHCR has a Senior Mental Health Officer in the Public Health Section in the headoffice. Relevant publications of UNHCR include ‘Culture, Context and the Mental Health and Psychosocial Wellbeing of Syrians’.

  Principal investigator & contact: Dr. Peter Ventevogel | ventevog@unhcr.org | +4122739228203

• University Hospital Zurich

  The Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy is structurally integrated into the University Hospital Zurich USZ, and strongly linked to the University of Zurich. The department is sub-divided into three major parts, namely the outpatient clinic, the consultation-liaison service, and the centre for eating disorders. The outpatient clinic includes, among others, a unit for the treatment of victims of war and torture, one for PTSD, and another one for problems related to migration. While our main research focus is on traumatic stress studies, we also conduct research in emotion regulation and recognition, psychotherapy, psychosomatics, psychooncology, pain and suffering, and eating disorders.

  The Department’s refugee mental health research group is led by Prof. Schnyder. Active members of the group include Dr. Matthis Schick, MD, Dr. Naser Morina, PhD, and Prof. Monique Pfaltz, PhD. We have recently been looking into, e.g., mental health and healthcare utilization in asylum seekers; levels of ego-structure in extremely traumatized refugees; Brief Eclectic Psychotherapy for PTSD; etc. A study on emotion regulation and self-efficacy in traumatized refugees, including behavioral experiments and psychophysiological measurements, is currently conducted in collaboration with Prof. Richard Bryant of Sydney, Australia. Based on the results of this study, we aim at developing psychotherapeutic mini-interventions for traumatized refugees.

  Principal investigator & contact: Dr. Naser Morina | naser.morina@usz.ch |  +41 44 255 52 80

• i-psy

  i-psy is a national Dutch organization focused on providing culturally sensitive psychological and psychiatric care. I-psy is focused on providing care for people who suffer from mental health problems, which are directly or indirectly related to immigration or to temporary cultural changes and to the consequence change/lack of social support network.

  I-psy provides culturally sensitive care from a systemic perspective, with attention to the social context and cultural background of the patient, and if possible in the language and with the treatment preference of the patient. I-psy is by far the largest provider of cross-cultural psychiatry in the Netherlands.

  Principal investigator: Yvette van Son
  Contact: Henry Breeveld and Yvette van Son | Holland.Strenghts@i-psy.nl | +31 088-3589200

• University of New South Wales

  The School of Psychology at UNSW, which will be participating in this project, is ranked 16th in the QS World Rankings. The School of Psychology at UNSW is located in the Faculty of Science and has approximately 40 academic staff, 1600 undergraduate students and 150 postgraduate students. The School of Psychology is one of the two top-ranked psychology departments in Australia, and its faculty has leading research expertise in researching traumatic stress, cross-cultural research, psychopathology, animal neuroscience, and cognition and emotion.

  Prof. Bryant is a leading researcher in the field of posttraumatic stress. He has conducted multiple randomized controlled trials of psychological interventions for populations affected by PTSD and grief, including studies in low and middle income countries such as Kenya, Indonesia, and Thailand. Prof. Bryant has also conducted hundreds of studies on the mechanisms that promote resilience following trauma and adversity, including social, behavioural, and cognitive processes that help people adapt to adversity. He collaborated with the World Health Organization in the development of PM+ and the initial trials of PM+ in Pakistan and Kenya. He has published 3 books, 70 book chapters, and over 480 journal articles on traumatic stress and related conditions, and these have been cited over 30,000 times. Prof. Bryant has been actively involved in translation of research findings into practical applications, and consults to many government and non-government organizations in Australia and around the world.

  Principal investigator & contact: Prof. Richard Bryant | r.bryant@unsw.edu.au | 61-2-93853640

• The Royal Tropical Institute, Department of Health

  The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) is an independent, not-for-profit, knowledge institute in the field of development cooperation with a mandate to alleviate poverty, and support sustainable development.

  The aim of KIT Health is to improve access to healthcare systems in developing countries. KIT Health provides consultancy services to governments, UN agencies, NGOs, and bilateral agencies in many countries all over the world. This unit also runs a number of educational programmes in Amsterdam (e.g. Master of International Health) and courses in the area of international healthcare.

  The work of KIT Health seeks to answer critical health development questions in low- and middle-income countries. This work includes the design, facilitation, and implementation of research projects across the spectrum of the health system. Areas of health systems research expertise include governance and health policy, social determinants of health, community development, human resources for health, quality of care and health financing.

  Principal investigator & contact: Dr. Egbert Sondorp | E.Sondorp@kit.nl

• London School of Economics and Political Science

  http://www.lse.ac.uk/

• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

  The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is one of the foremost postgraduate institutions in the world for research and postgraduate education in global health, encompassing many disciplines and health issues. It currently has projects and partnerships in more than 100 countries.

  The Centre for Global Chronic Conditions at LSHTM seeks to improve understanding of and responses to chronic conditions in low, middle and high-income country settings through research, policy and public engagement and teaching. The Centre fosters collaboration and communication between researchers across a range of settings and disciplines. We have skills in epidemiology, economics, social and political sciences; and with a strong focus on health systems.

  Principal investigator & contact: Professor Bayard Roberts | bayard.roberts@lshtm.ac.uk | +44 20 7927 2050

• Mülteciler ve Sığınmacılar Yardımlaşma ve Dayanışma Derneği

  http://multeciler.org.tr/

• Danish Red Cross, IFRC Reference Centre for Psychosocial Support

  Danish Red Cros (DRC) is a member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) . In the STRENGTHS project, DRC is represented by the IFRC Reference Centre for Psychosocial Support (PS Centre).

  The PS Centre was founded in 1993 to assist the Red Cross Red Crescent Movement. It’s mandate is to help create awareness regarding psychosocial reactions in crisis, improve preparedness and response mechanisms, restore community networks and coping, promote emotional resilience and enhance care of staff and volunteers. The centre reaches these aims by developing guidelines, manuals and training materials, through technical support to partners, advocacy, and participation in knowledge generation projects and by facilitating regional and thematic networks. Areas of expertise include: Psychosocial support in disasters, conflicts and protracted crisis, communication and dissemination, development of training material for psychosocial support, project management and project administration.

  Principal investigator: Nana Wiedemann
  Contact: Project manager Martha Bird | mabir@rodekors.dk

• Freie Universität

  Freie Universität (FUB) is one of the universities to have been successful in all three lines of funding in the German government’s Excellence Initiative. FUB has long-standing experience in the administration of national and international grants, and handles more than 125 million EUR of third-party funding every year.

  The research team at the Freie Universität is one of the internationally leading research groups in the field of e-mental health and has extensive experience in the development, implementation and evaluation of internet-based therapeutic interventions. A main focus of previous research projects was the access of under supplied populations (refugees, older patients, patients with special needs) to therapeutic care. The implementation of these projects was funded by the German Research Foundation, by multiple Federal Ministries, as well as by the largest German health insurance company (Techniker Krankenkasse).

  In May 2016, Professor Knaevelsrud was honored with the Diotima prize of the German Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists for her scientific work on internet-based therapy in war and crisis zones. For her excellent scientific and clinical achievements in other projects on internet-based interventions, she received the Bayer Social Award and the prize of the German Association for Behavior Therapy.

  Principal investigator: Prof. Christine Knaevelsrud
  Contact: Sebastian Burchert | s.burchert@fu-berlin.de | +49 30 838 57523

• International Medical Corps UK, IMC Regional Technical Unit – Middle East

  International Medical Corps is an experienced leader in responding to mental health and psychosocial needs in the context of humanitarian crises, strengthening mental health systems, and informing national policies in the longer-term development context. International Medical Corps works in about 30 countries and implements mental health and psychosocial programs in 20 countries.

  As part of its holistic approach to health, International Medical Corps incorporates mental health and well-being into several of its programs to address both crisis induced and pre-existing mental health problems. International Medical Corps has been a contributing member of the Guidelines Development Group for the WHO mhGAP-IG and has contributed to several tools in the WHO/UNHCR Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Assessment Toolkit for humanitarian settings including the ‘Mental Health Primary Health Care Integration Checklist’.

  In addition, International Medical Corps has developed six instructional videos corresponding to six modules in the mhGAP in collaboration with WHO.

  International Medical Corps has extensive mental health and psychosocial support initiatives throughout the Middle East, including integrated responses to the Syria crisis within Syria as well as in Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq. These activities are comprised of comprehensive mental health and psychosocial support service provision, training and capacity building for service providers and first responders supporting Syrians, community-based outreach and awareness-raising, coordination of humanitarian MHPSS working groups, advocacy and policy efforts, and assessment and research projects.

  Principal investigator & contact: Dr. Inka Weissbecker, PhD, MPH | iweissbecker@InternationalMedicalCorps.org | +380-50-371-0030

• ARQ International

  ARQ International (formerly War Trauma Foundation) is the international department of ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre, based in the Netherlands. ARQ is world’s largest expert centre focused on the psychological effects of crisis and conflict.
  ARQ International works to strengthen mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) for people affected by war, conflict and disaster in low- and middle-income countries. We aim to bridge the gap between research and practice. We do so by building developing relationships with organisations operating at international level and in humanitarian and developmental settings, through developing and implementing projects (on MHPSS capacity strengthening, research and staff support) and by knowledge sharing through our networks as well as the journal Intervention.

  Website: ARQ International
  Principal investigator: Annelieke Drogendijk
  Contact: Saara Martinmäki (Project Coordinator) | s.martinmaki@arq.org | +31 (0)610092050

• Koç University, Department of Psychology

  Koç University was founded in 1993 as a non-profit private university in Istanbul, Turkey. Since its establishment, Koç University has become one of the leading universities in Turkey, distinguished by notable contributions to the elevation of education, knowledge, and service both domestically and beyond.

  Dr. Ceren Acaturk has expertise in mental health issues of Syrian refugees residing in Turkey. She conducted one of the first randomized controlled trials of EMDR for Syrian refugees in refugee camp settings and has several other projects focused on mental health interventions for Syrian adults and children. She supervises the Project Lift (Maya Foundation) which aims to provide art therapy-based psychosocial support for Syrian children living in Istanbul.

  Principal investigator & contact: Dr. Ceren Acaturk | cacarturk@ku.edu.tr