Living a healthy, secure, and effective life

The Vontobel Foundation is supporting Zurich-based family-help Association by providing basic funding from 2024 to 2026. The most important goal of the family-help Association's services for refugee children, adolescents, expectant mothers, and families is to reinforce the attributes that can make them more resilient and to lessen the chances that they will pass their own emotional trauma on to subsequent generations.

Since 2017, the family-help Association has been offering individual and group psychotherapeutic therapies for refugee children, adolescents, expectant mothers, and families following an experience in which they have had to flee their own country. Four years after its establishment, the association also began supporting refugees by providing daily structure to those with severe psychological stress and trauma-related disorders.

If required, family-help also offers support in the form of social work to anyone who is receiving psychotherapeutic care, facilitating the networking efforts of the various actors working in the asylum sector, such as community officials, schools, and other training centers.

Thanks to the therapy provided and by promoting practical, culture-specific skills and German language skills, the aim is for refugees to gradually be able to settle in Switzerland. Healthy processes are initiated allowing them to develop, reduce the consequences of trauma, and take steps towards social and financial independence. At the same time as their mental health is strengthened, learning and performance are improved and self-esteem and self-confidence are also increased.

The concepts applied by family-help are based on the latest findings from developmental psychology, attachment theory, and trauma therapy. Its projects are scientifically evaluated and continuously refined.

In order to counteract the shortage of skilled workers in the areas of child and adolescent psychotherapy and trauma therapy, as well as in the treatment and support of refugees, family-help also offers training positions for prospective specialists and further education for an interdisciplinary audience.