For highly severely traumatized children and adolescents, their symptoms may sometimes make regular school attendance difficult. Many mothers spend a lot of time alone at home with their young children and their worries. The “aacho am Tag” service gives them an incentive to leave the house and actively shape their daily lives. In this structured setting, they get to experience stability within a community and receive support through integrative therapy approaches. This helps to counteract depressive withdrawal. With this in mind, the therapy programme “aacho am Tag” provide a space for children, adolescents, mothers, and families to find peace and recharge in a stable environment.

Goals

The objective is to improve the mental health of the refugees in the care of the project. The calming and stabilizing structure is intended to encourage them to strengthen and access their own resources and resilience. Supporting individual development processes and fostering self-esteem and self-confidence are important aspects of the project. The goal is to enable the social and financial independence of refugees by promoting practical and culture-specific life skills and German language skills, and by improving their learning and performance capacities.

Project Grant

The Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation supports the association family help, including the project “aacho am Tag”, with a project grant to 300,000 CHF for the period from 2023 to 2026.

For further information and other projects by family help see:

• www.family-help.ch
• The article in the 2023 Annual Report of the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation, p. 26 ff.