Peer-supported, preventive trauma work – a stepped-care programme for psychologically distressed, traumatised refugees in Baden-Württemberg: Together with the University of Konstanz, vivo members offer low-threshold support.

The model project, financed by the state of Baden-Württemberg, evaluates low-threshold, stepped care for distressed refugees by appropriately trained peers with migration experience and linguistic and cultural competence, who screen for traumatic stress in the respective primary language and offer stepped care.

In cases of subclinical symptoms, peer counsellors offer preventive counselling based on narrative biography work to reduce stress and build resources. A training curriculum and practical handbook have been developed for this narrative trauma work, NAT (Kaiser et al., 2026). Initial results confirm the efficiency of differentiated identification of stress and need for help. The effectiveness of NAT is being validated in ongoing counselling sessions.