UNICEF and Japan Will Scale up Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Services for Refugee Children in Armenia

The programme is designed to address mental health and psychosocial well-being services across education, health and social services, improving cross-sectoral coordination and referral. To ensure that national systems have the capacity to support children’s wellbeing, UNICEF will partner with municipalities, as well as national government, including Ministries of Health; Education, Science, Culture and Sports; Labor and Social Affairs, and Territorial Administration and Infrastructure.

At the community level, UNICEF will support service providers, such as health providers, psychologists, social workers, with training, counselling and referral mechanisms to strengthen their technical expertise to apply a broad range of tools and resources for mental health support. UNICEF will also work with the national government to develop policies, regulatory frameworks and oversight mechanisms to guide the work of service providers and institutions.

“Many countries lack the human and financial resources for mental health, and people in need of support are not receiving adequate services. At the same time, conflicts and disasters continue to occur around the world, increasing the need for support in this area,” noted Mr WAKUI Junji, Resident Representative of JICA Georgia office. “Japan is a country that frequently experiences disasters, such as earthquakes, and since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995, we have accumulated extensive knowledge on mental health care for disaster victims. Making use of this knowledge, JICA has also provided MHPSS support to victims of many disasters.”

“Our goal is to provide compassionate, individualized care to each child affected by the conflict. We aim to help these children recover from the traumas of past conflicts and rediscover hope. With UNICEF’s profound expertise in child welfare, we strive to empower them to envision—and believe in—a brighter future. This builds upon our previous successful partnership with UNICEF during the 2021 emergency grant aid that addressed urgent humanitarian needs in Armenia,” said H.E. AOKI Yutaka, Ambassador of Japan to the Republic of Armenia.

“To ensure every child can realize their right to good mental health and well-being, we need to work across sectors with an integrated approach at the community level. Delivery modalities and tools need to be tailored to the needs of boys and girls and adjusted to consider the needs of different age-groups of children from early childhood to adolescence,” explained Ms Christine Weigand, UNICEF Representative in Armenia. “Through this programme, we also come together to promote positive attitudes among the population to encourage demand for mental health and psychosocial services where needed.”

In the healthcare sector, UNICEF will work with partners to develop standard training and counseling packages for healthcare providers on psychoeducation, as well as early identification and management of mental health issues. Periodic counselling sessions will be organized for ethnic Armenian refugee children, their peers from host communities and their parents. UNICEF will train frontline services providers, such as psychologists and social workers in psychological first aid, as well as work with paraprofessionals for greater outreach throughout communities with limited number of frontline professionals. UNICEF will partner with Republic Pedagogical Psychological Center to pilot school based mental health services in ten schools, preparing a model for scaling up across the country. UNICEF will also work with youth workers and young peer support volunteers to build their capacity to support adolescents and young people, while also preventing burnout. Finally, UNICEF will also produce online and broadcast edutainment materials on mental health, promoting social-emotional skills, self-care and resilience.

For further information, please contact: Zara Sargsyan, UNICEF Armenia, +37455232169, zsargsyan@unicef.org

For more information about UNICEF humanitarian response in Armenia: Children and families take refuge in Armenia | UNICEF Armenia