Free Access: An Anonymous and Open Community Space for Mental Health Support in Porrentruy

Free Access: An Anonymous and Open Community Space for Mental Health Support in Porrentruy

2024-05-13 17:00:00

Free access, it’s a new place to submit your problems, open to everyone, free, anonymous and without an appointment. Following a tender from the State Secretariat for Migration and the Cantonal Social Action Service, the project took shape on rue des Baîches in Porrentruy. Between June and December, around sixty people attended the phone lines. Three times a week, psychotherapists with training in short therapies welcome patients. It is the association “Familles d’Ajoie”, which manages the place as well as La Bulle verte, created in 2015, both are based on the same principles, but do not target the same audience. If the second is meant to offer a place of socialization for young children and sharing for those who follow them, the first offers a new place to listen. This pilot project runs over two years.

Anonymity allows you to lower the threshold

Anonymity is one of the most important aspects of Open Access. People who have the means also visit the institution to discuss their mental health. Patients who may not have taken the first step of contacting a professional, according to the president. Stéphanie Boule-Malnati points out that, even on the front door of the building, there is nothing to indicate the presence of Free Access: “also by this desire to lower the thresholds, so that anyone can walk through the door in an anonymous way. No one knows where the person will enter.”

Open to all

Although the State Secretariat for Migration triggered the creation of Open Access, everyone is welcome. Foreign populations, especially Ukrainian families who were the first targeted by the process, are not many who visit the premises. “We all have life contexts. It can be problems at work, difficulties at school, relationship problems”, explains the psychotherapist, who notes that the youngest patient is 7 years old and the oldest 70 years old.

Free access will be presented this Saturday during the “Haut de la ville s’amuse” event in Porrentruy, where around fifteen stands will be set up in Grand rue and rue des Baîches from 10am to 5pm. /ncp

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