PO Box 17402
East Jerusalem, Via Israel
Ms. Rana Nashashibi
Non-profit community organization; counseling; psychological testing; research; specialized training programs; support groups.
In 1983 the PCC began to introduce the notion of mental health services, including school counseling, to the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Since then it has provided client centered counseling services to any Palestinian without fee, including counseling in local schools in close cooperation with teaching staff and by providing the Big Sister/Brother Program in which university students tutor and assist school students. It aims to help individuals to discover their talents and develop their abilities through solving their personal and family problems in one-to-one and group counseling sessions. The center refers individuals to sources of information and services available to them in the local community, has a resource library, and administers achievement, ability, and intelligence tests. It researches the counseling needs of children and organizes specialist workshops and public lectures on subjects related to counseling and mental health for school children, their teachers, and parents, as well as to local institutions, with whom it has developed strong links of cooperation and coordination, including integration of counselors in primary health care clinics. Recently the PCC, in cooperation with Medicins Sans Frontieres, established the Psychological Care Center for the Child and the Family in Jenin.
The Board of Trustees includes fifteen prominent members of the community, all of whom hold positions in national institutions and who are active in the community; a Board of Directors which includes five members elected every two years by the Board of Trustees; a Director; a Program Coordinator; two clinical supervisors, and fourteen counselors who all have degrees in Counseling and related fields.
Elaine Clark
Educational Network, POB 66, Ramallah, West Bank
tel: 02 995 6230/fax: 02 995 6231 e-mail: eclark@ednet.birzeit.edu