One to One Children's Fund Visits its Kosovo Counselling Programmes
One to One Children's Fund Clinical Director, Jenny Altschuler and Project Manager, Nathalie Renaud, have just returned from visiting One to One's counselling centres in Prizren and Peja. The centres provide individual, family and group counselling to as many as 150 clients every month (through approximately 500 consultation sessions per month) as well as offering outreach work in local schools and 50 villages in the two municipalities.
The Centres were opened in 1999 to help families suffering from the psychological consequences of political turmoil and war. Twelve trained counsellors are working hard to fulfil the ever increasing demands from families and school staff struggling to cope with issues such as parenting difficulties, domestic violence, health problems, divorce and severe mental disabilities. Whilst some of these problems are similar to the experiences of families in Britain, in Kosovo they are intensified as many families are still struggling to deal with the traumatic consequences of a war in which so many lost close relatives, in addition to their homes. Our counsellors are also working in villages where many men and young men remain missing.
On top of this, people are living in a society of transition in which unemployment is estimated to be 53%, where there has been a mass migration from the rural to urban areas, where increasing numbers of war-time refugees are being forcibly returned from countries like the UK, Denmark, Germany and Sweden, and where reports of suicide are escalating.
During our visit, we met with our counselling staff to review their clinical work and help decide on which aspects of the work to prioritize over the coming months. Case discussions focused on experiences of loss, including the losses incurred as a result of the war, family break-up, divorce and suicide. Other discussions focused on work with violence, illness and disability. Clinical consultations also focused on work with schools, which has become increasingly important and we visited a primary school in Prizren (in which 3 shifts are run each day requiring the school to be open from 7am until 7-30 pm) and a secondary school in Peja. Both headmasters emphasized the value of One to One's work in helping to address the needs of the school's most troubled pupils and supporting their over-stretched and overburdened staff group.
For example, in the Peja school, the headmaster commented that despite being amongst his most de-motivated pupils, the children look forward to going to the centre for their group session each week. He also said that the sessions have had an immediate impact on the children's behaviour at school who, he said, have become more respectful of the school property.
One to One is running a counselling training for social workers employed by the Department of Labour and Social Welfare. In partnership with the Ministry of Health (MoH), the Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare (MLSW) and the University of Pristina, our charity established Kosovo's first accredited counselling course which was attended by 10 One to One counsellors, as well as 10 people working for other NGO's and government employees based in the education, mental health, social services and probation services.
Last year, One to One Children's Fund started its second training course, this time for the Department of Labour and Social Welfare to extend the number of trained counsellors in Kosovo, alongside the work of One to One Kosovo. This 16-month training course will provide the mental health and social welfare institutions with 20 highly trained counsellors to work with children, families and adults in 10 of the 30 municipalities of Kosovo.
After 10 years of involvement, One to One's legacy in Kosovo is important and visible. The profession of counsellor will soon be fully recognised by the MoH through the licensing of all the graduates of the One to One counselling courses.
One to One Children's Fund would like to thank the Medicor Foundation for the vital funding it has provided for the counselling project. One to One Children's Fund is still seeking further funds for this year's activities and is actively supporting One to One Kosovo in their attempts to raise core-funding to sustain the provision of counselling services independently, in the future.
