GEOPOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY SERVICE FOR INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION SEEKERS

NIHMP-Rome

The Service provides assistance and care to international protection seekers, refugees and victims of torture. In this

booklet, you will find information on how we will take care of you, help you apply for international protection or,

in case it has been rejected, to make an appeal.

A cultural mediator will receive you A person of your origin country or speaking your language will provide you with information on the following issues:

Italian and International regulations on the recognition of the status of refugee, subsidiary and humanitarian protection and the procedures to obtain it;

the National Health Service, access conditions through the National Health Card or the STP (temporarily present foreigner) code and the public health centres where you can undergo medical examinations;

legal services for international protection, housing and canteen services, Italian courses for non-native speakers in Rome and its Province;

Cultural mediators

the NIHMP Social and Health Care Service can provide you with information and advice on social issues, education and work.

A cultural mediator will fill in a personal data and biographic form in order to introduce you to the other members of the team (doctors, nurses, psychologists, anthropologists) and will take you to them.

Tasks of cultural mediators: by speaking your mother tongue, they allow you to express

yourself and your needs more easily; by knowing your background, they make the other members

of the team aware of your interaction modalities (thoughts, values, feelings and habits);

they identify specific cultural aspects emerging from your account and helps the team to understand them;

they support the team in finding a common language for working together;

they suggest the team how to behave and act in order to make you feel at your ease and suitably help you.

Service Passaggi nei territori di Giano -

Reception

Doctors They perform medical examinations, prescribe blood and instrumental tests and, if needed, also prescribe further specialist examinations.

The medical staff

Gennaro Franco Dermatologist

Teresa D’Arca Internist

Lorenzo Nosotti Internist

Luigi Baggi Dentist

Suzanne Mbiye Diku Gynaecologist

Rosalia Marrone Infectious Diseases Specialist

Ilaria Uccella Infectious Diseases Specialist

Chiara Pajno Infectious Diseases Specialist

Paolo Turchetti Ophthalmologist

Nurses They take blood samples. They provide wound dressing and injections if needed. They inform you on how to take an appointment for the tests

prescribed - i.e. how to contact the centre for the reservation of health services (CUP) and which data you will be required to communicate.

The nursing staff

Francesca De Antonis Rosa Cespedes

Stefano Carosi L. Antochi

Mihaela Chirita Maria Chiara Lanciotti

Cosima Perdicchia Charge nurse

Psychologists They perform interviews aimed at understanding your needs and planning future steps, namely: writing of the dossier to be submitted either to the Territorial

Commission, who will evaluate your application for international protection, or to the Judge if you are making an appeal;

a number of interviews for collecting your traumatic history to be attached to the dossier;

psychodiagnostic interviews for issuing medical certificates to be attached to the dossier;

psychological counselling for introducing you to some relaxation techniques, such as: autogenic training; aware breathing; attention, concentration and focusing awareness on the

body; ethnopsychiatry-oriented integrated psychotherapy.

TRANSDISCIPLINARY AND TRANSCULTUR-AL CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY SERVICE NIHMP, ROME

Psychologists

Maria Cristina Tumiati

Psychologist

Daria Maggio Psychologist

Rosaria Gatta Psychologist

Sonia Viale Psychologist

The dossier The dossier contains a number of useful documents for facing the interview with the Territorial Commission if you are applying for international protection, or with the Judge if you are making an appeal. During the interview, the dossier represents a fundamental means for a number of reasons: you will have little time for explaining your experience and

what led you to flee your country and seek protection in Italy; you could get agitated and find it difficult to remember all

the events occurred; you will not have the possibility to explain the historical,

political, economical, social and cultural issues that led you to flee your country.

The dossier includes the following documents: your detailed traumatic history, with explanatory notes and

important information to thoroughly describe the conditions that led you to seek protection in Italy;

medical and psychological certificates resulting from medical examinations, psychological interviews and diagnostic tests;

a number of historical, political, and sociological documents validating your traumatic history.

Traumatic history collection and dossier creation A small group of experts including a psychologist, a cultural mediator and an anthropologist will carefully consider and write down the events that forced you to migrate. We make use of psychological techniques with the following purposes: to support you when reporting the most painful events; to calm you down with relaxation techniques (i.e. autogenic

training and hypnotic induction) if you are agitated; to facilitate the emerging of repressed memories; for psychotherapy purposes, with the objective of making you

aware of the possibility to re-consider your experience in a different light.

An anthropologist will support you in order to: help us to better understand your ideas,

values, feelings and behaviours; give a context and an historical

background to the events you are reporting;

collect documents that can validate your story. Maria Concetta

Segneri Anthropologist

Your Rights International protection seeker A person who applied for asylum to a foreign country in order to obtain the refugee or subsidiary protection status. Subsidiary protection status It is granted to non-EU or stateless persons1 not entitled to the recognition of the refugee status but who have well-grounded reasons to consider themselves at serious risk in their origin country or, in case of stateless persons, in the country of former habitual residence.

Italian regulations 1998 Law No. 40 (Turco-Napolitano) 2002 Law No. 189 (Bossi-Fini) 2007 Legislative Decree No. 159 2008 Legislative Decree n. 25 (fulfilment of Legislative Decree

No. 159)

The United Nations Convention (1951) and the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees (1967) define as a "refugee" that person who “owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it. In the case of a person who has more than one nationality, the term "the country of his nationality" shall mean each of the countries of which he is a national, and a person shall not be deemed to be lacking the protection of the country of his nationality if, without any valid reason based on well-founded fear, he has not availed himself of the protection of one of the countries of which he is a national”.

1 Persons with no recognised nationality

Art. 1A, Geneva Convention, 1951

The reasons for persecution indicated in the definition of “refugee” provided by the Geneva Convention are the following: Race includes considerations of colour, descent, or membership of a particular ethnic group. Religion includes the holding of theistic, non-theistic and atheistic beliefs, the participation in, or abstention from, formal worship in private or in public, either alone or in community with others, other religious acts or expressions of view, or forms of personal or communal conduct based on or mandated by any religious belief. Nationality which shall not be confined to citizenship or lack thereof but shall in particular include membership of a group determined by its cultural, ethnic, or linguistic identity, common geographical or political origins or its relationship with the population of another State. Membership of a specific social group, composed of people sharing innate characteristic, or a common background that cannot be changed, or share a characteristic or belief that is so fundamental to identity or conscience that a person should not be forced to renounce it, and that group has a distinct identity in the relevant country, because it is perceived as being different by the surrounding society. Political opinion includes the holding of an opinion, thought or belief on a matter related to the potential actors of persecution and to their policies or methods, whether or not that opinion, thought or belief has been acted upon by the applicant.

In order to obtain the recognition of the refugee or subsidiary protection status, you should personally submit an international protection request to the police headquarters of your abode area2. A person eligible for subsidiary protection is a third country national or a stateless person who does not qualify as a refugee but in respect of whom substantial grounds have been shown for believing that the person concerned, if returned to his or her country of origin, or in the case of a stateless person, to his or her country of former habitual residence, would face a real risk of suffering serious harm (…) and is unable, or, owing to such risk, is unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of that country. Serious harm consists of: 1. death penalty or execution; 2. torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of an applicant in the country of origin; 3. serious and individual threat to a civilian's life or person by reason of indiscriminate violence in situations of international or internal armed conflict. A Police officer receives the request and issues a report. The applicant approves and signs the report and receives a copy. The territorial commission for the recognition of international protection of the territory where the request was submitted performs an in interview with the applicant within 30 days from reception of the request3 and decides in 3 working days.

How to obtain the recognition of the refugee or subsidiary protection status

2 Place where you are living at the moment 3 In some cases the procedures are shorter (i.e. if the applicant is hosted in a reception centre for migrants or refugees)

The members of the commission are : Two representatives of the Italian Ministry of Interior (i.e.

Prefecture and Police officers); One member of a territorial office; One member of the UNHCR. The interview is not public and relatives shall not attend. The applicant can decide to be assisted by a lawyer and require assistance if he/she belongs to a vulnerable category4. A report of the interview shall be issued to the applicant. On the basis of the interview, the territorial commission shall take one of the following decisions: 1. to recognise the refugee status; 2. to recognise the subsidiary protection status; 3. not to recognise international protection, but to recommend the competent police headquarters to grant humanitarian protection; 4. to deny any kind of protection. Unaccompanied minors who intend to apply for international protection should be provided with a guardian, but they can immediately use the services offered by the local administrations in the framework of the Protection System for Asylum Seekers and Refugees5. You can contest the decision of the territorial commission within 15 days from notification. Appeal should be submitted to the Court of the main city of the Appeal Court district where the territorial commission decided. Free legal aid is granted to the persons entitled.

4 for instance, women suspected to have undergone sexual abuse, victims of torture, etc. 5 SPRAR, Sistema di Protezione per Richiedenti Asilo e Rifugiati

The appeal suspends the effectiveness of the decision and the applicant stays on the territory with a renewable stay permit for asylum seekers that allows working activities. In some cases, the appeal does not suspend the effectiveness of the decision, i.e. for those people whose asylum request was rejected because non admissible or unfounded. Anyway, a request to the Court for suspending the effectiveness of the decision is allowable if there are serious and founded reasons. The decision of the Court of appeal can be contested to the Court of Cassation within 30 days from notification. The stay permit for refugees is valid for 5 years and can be renewed. Permit holders are entitled to the following rights: 1. to maintain family unity; 2. to be treated as Italian citizens as regards labour, professional registers, vocational and professional training; 3. to be admitted to public employment (with the same modalities and limits of EU citizens); 4. to access education; 5. to be treated as Italian citizens as regards social and health care; 6. to move, integrate and reside freely. In order to allow international travel, the police issues to people with recognised refugee status a travel document with a 5-year validity and renewable. The stay permit for subsidiary protection has a 3-year validity and is renewable if the conditions that allowed the recognition of the subsidiary protection status are unchanged. It can be changed into a stay permit for work reasons if the person is entitled to.

Permit holders are entitled to the following rights: 1. to maintain family unity (if they have housing and income requisites); 2. to be treated as Italian citizens as regards labour, professional registers, vocational and professional training; 3. access to public employment is not allowed; 4. to access education; 5. to be treated as Italian citizens as regards social and health care; 6. to move, integrate and reside freely. A travel document is issued by the police if there are founded reasons not allowing to ask for a passport to the Embassy of the origin country. The stay permit for humanitarian reasons (granted before 19 January 2008) is normally valid for one year; when renewed, it is changed into a stay permit for subsidiary protection and the person is entitled to the same rights of subsidiary protection holders.

Your intervention programme:

ID number ________________________________________________

Lawyer:

Name _____________________________________________________

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Working for the organisation (if applicable) __________________

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Tel. _______________________________________________________

Address ___________________________________________________

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Diagnostic and instrumental tests undergone _________________

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Your intervention programme:

Who collected your traumatic memory ______________________

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Documents needed _______________________________________

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Who did you meet and what did you do? Reception _________________________________________________

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Medical examinations _____________________________________

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Blood tests _______________________________________________

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Psychodiagnostic interviews ________________________________

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2 _________________________________________________________

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Who did you meet and what did you do? Interviews for report preparation

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Opening hours Reception: from Monday to Friday from 8.30 am to 1.00 pm

Contacts

Reception: tel. 06 58543731 Psychological interviews and report preparation: tel. 06 58543687

E-mail rifugiati@inmp.it

Directions

From Termini station, Bus line H up to Piazza Sonnino From Piramide station, in Piazzale Porta San Paolo, Bus line 3 up

to the Ministry of Public Education or Bus line 75 up to the Regina Margherita Hospital

From Largo di Torre Argentina, tram line 8 up to Piazza Sonnino

Opening hours and contacts

Access to the outpatient department: Via delle Fratte di Trastevere, 52 - Rome, Italy

Passaggi nei territori di Giano

National Institute for Health, Migration and Poverty (NIHMP)

Via di S. Gallicano 25/a 00153 Rome, Italy Tel. +39 06/45503117-06/58543739 Fax 06/45503115 - info@inmp.it

www.inmp.it

Layout by Stefano Schiaroli Translated by Cecilia Fazioli

Promoted by:

Created by the Service for international protection seekers, refugees and victims

of torture "Passaggi nei territori di Giano”

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