Mission Statement

The mission of Psychological Service is to provide a quality service in the field of psychological assessment, therapeutic intervention and consultation. The primary beneficiaries of the service are service users of Agenzija Appoġġ and its Services, with particular emphasis on children and families.

The mission of the Psychological Service is governed by its guiding philosophy which seeks to respect the individual's potential for growth and development paying special attention to the needs of the socially excluded in the Maltese society.

The Service

When a person feels distressed, traumatised, unable to function well and begins to have difficulties to cope with everyday living, it is an indication that psychological help may be needed. Psychological sessions consist of talking about one's problems and finding ways of coping with them. With children, drawings and play are used as ways of helping them to bring out their stories and speak about their difficulties in a less threatening way.

This service offers a therapeutic service in the form of sessions or assessments, to clients that are referred to this unit for psychological intervention. Children, adolescents and adults who are referred from social work units within Appoġġ benefit from the service. Given the limited amount of resources and the demand for the service, to date, the service does not accept referrals from outside the agency.

The service of therapy and assessment is presently offered by 6 qualified psychologists (3 clinical and 4 counselling), and 1 psychotherapist. Each have different areas and backgrounds of specialisation to cater for different client needs, as well as a number of years of working experience.

A service user is usually offered about 3 evaluative sessions at the beginning of therapy. Each session lasts between 50 minutes to one hour. Other sessions are planned weekly, fortnightly, or less/more frequently depending upon the individual needs of each service user. Sessions continue to be held for short-term (1 month) or longer durations (1-2 years) accordingly. A person may be referred to the service for an assessment rather than therapy so that professionals can plan out better the services that the person may need.

There are different approaches to carrying out a psychological assessment of a service user, mostly depending on the reasons why it is required. Assessment could be based entirely on interviewing the service user (approximately 6-8 sessions), or a can be a combination of interviewing and psychological tests. Choice of tests once again depends on the scope of assessment, which may be to elicit any problems in one's personality, stability, specific areas that are troubling the service user, so as to help him/her more effectively and efficiently.

Aims and Objectives

Psychological Services has the following aims and objectives:

- To provide psychological assessment of service users for therapeutic and other purposes.

- To provide psychotherapy to individuals of various ages facing psychological difficulties and / or life span transitions.

- To provide couple and marital therapy when this is indicated.

- To provide group therapy with appropriate client groups when this is indicated.

- To provide assistance to other workers about case management from a psychological perspective.

- To spread awareness about the specific utility of psychological theory and practice within the agency and to the general public.

- To invest in research that can help in further development of the Service's practice (considering the limited clinical research undertaken in the local context the service makes use of its staff's experience to gather relevant research data through its day-to-day functioning).

To view a leaflet about this service click here .