LIBERTAS PSYCHOTHERAPY CAMPAIGN: progress from April to June 2025 (LIBERTAS)

1/2 Meeting in Armenia - end of April 2025 (INTRA / LIBERTAS)

Following on from its campaign launched at the end of 2024 to provide psychological support to former Armenian prisoners, their families, and the families of those still in captivity, LIBERTAS is stepping up its efforts on the ground.

At the end of April 2025, Hilda Tchoboian, coordinator of the collective, carried out a mission to supervise the project unfolding in Armenia:

• First, working sessions on the rolling out of psychotherapeutic care were held in collaboration with Khachatur Gasparyan, director of the Seda Ghazarian Foundation for Mental Health (INTRA)

• These sessions laid the foundations for structured and sustainable support for former state hostages and their family, implemented by INTRA, Seda Ghazarian Mental Health Center in Yerevan.

  This program is realized thanks to a technical collaboration between INTRA, also supported by ICRC Delegation in Armenia, and the ICLC (International and Comparative Law Center) in Armenia.

  NB:  INTRA experts also cooperate  with "Santé Arménie", and the Vinatier Psychiatric hospital in Lyon

• This mission also marked the official launch of the field survey phase, which aims to assess the psychological and social assistance needs of 195 former Armenian prisonners / hostages, who have been released in stages since 2021

• INTRA has set up 3 multidisciplinary duos (psychologists and social workers) to cover the cities of Gyumri, Vanadzor and Yerevan in order to conduct face-to-face assessment interviews, both individually and with families.

Khachatur Gasparyan and Hilda Tchoboian during a working session on April 18, 2025, discussing the ongoing LIBERTAS program providing psychological care to released Armenian hostages and their families.

Alongside this work, Hilda Tchoboian gathered testimonies from two key figures involved in the project: Siranush Sahakyan, director of the International and Comparative Law Center, and Khachatur Gasparyan, director of the INTRA Center:

2/2 Video conference meeting – June 18, 2025 (INTRA / LIBERTAS)

The assessment phase is progressing as planned:

• 195 released prisoners were targeted to be informed by telephone about the psychotherapy project and to be invited to participate in the psychological needs assessment survey

• As of June 18, 2025, an attempt to contact 31 former prisoners of war from a first group was carried out:

  • 17 have been contacted and 7 of them have agreed to an initial meeting with one of the three INTRA teams, each consisting of a psychologist and a social worker, depending on where the prisoners live. The assessment can begin after this initial meeting

  • 14 could not be reached, and attempts to contact them will continue.

The psychologist and social worker duo from the INTRA center participating in the conference

INTRA team participating in the conference with, on the right, Khachatur Gasparyan, its director

Hilda Tchoboian, LIBERTAS coordinator