Painful life experiences can affect the mental health of anyone, anytime. By listening to, and encouraging each other to seek support when needed, we can all play an important role in improving our individual and collective wellbeing.
UNHCR-Syria provides mental health and psychosocial services (MHPSS) through a network of community centres across Syria, each centre includes the following services:
Social and Recreational Activities
Through our community centres, you can join social and recreational activities that are designed to empower children, youth, women, men, and older persons with problem-solving and social skills, building their confidence and a sense of belonging. Those activities include: • Group discussions, theatre/role plays, drawing, and games to help individuals express their feelings, gain new insights and understandings, and practice new and more satisfying behaviours. • Artistic activities, such as music, decoration, and accessory-making as well as sports for development, cooking and planting, along with the promotion of peer support and community groups. These activities help to engage and address the specific needs of children and adolescents. • Social events, including visiting galleries, bazaars, concerts, matches, open days, celebrating social occasions and going on other trips.
MHPSS Case Management
The programme offers different ways to support mental health and psychosocial well-being, either through one-on-one counselling sessions or sessions in a small group, and they’ll refer to specialised MHPSS services if necessary.
Awareness Sessions
During awareness raising sessions, participants discuss mental health and psychosocial problems in order to build individuals’ capacities in: • Identifying signs of mental health and psychosocial problems, • Acquiring the knowledge and skills required to deal with stressors, • Improving resilience, and • Decreasing the stigma around mental health and psychosocial problems in the community.
Tips on how to help yourself in a stressful situation
• Sit in a comfortable position so that your arms and legs do not cross • Slowly take a deep breath in and out • Take a look around and name five objects • Slowly take a deep breath in and out • Now name five sounds. Slowly take a deep breath in and out • Now name five things you feel. For example, I feel this cold rush, my body pressing against a chair, I can feel the blanket under my arms, I can feel my lips tightening • Slowly take a deep breath in and out • Focus your inner attention on a centre point: as your feet stand on the floor, as your body sits on a chair, your back rests on the back of the chair. It can also help if you get up and firmly “grow” your feet on the floor, take off your shoes and step on the ground or on the floor with each foot, feeling as if your feet are the foundation for a house, firmly connected to the ground. To feel in the literal sense the soil under your feet and the force of gravity. You can do this while sitting on a chair or lying down • Wrap yourself tightly in a blanket. Hug yourself tightly, or ask someone to hug you. Rub your arms and legs, moving from the bottom up from the feet to the thigs and from top to bottom from the shoulders to the wrists. Whenever possible, slow down your breathing and bring it to your stomach. • Periodically slowly drinking a few sips of water, we also give a signal to the psyche that the anti-stress response can be reduced.
