Counseling & Advice

Counseling & Advice Centers

Navigating the health system and understanding legal rights can be challenging. These counseling and advice centers are set up to guide people through those big questions and topics.

Pregnancy & Birth

Schwanger und Viele Fragen is a free, anonymous service (available by phone, email/chat, or in person at 1600 centers around Germany) that provides information, counseling, and advice on the topic of pregnancy. Support is available in 18 languages, including Ukrainian.

Beratungstelle Familienzelt offers counseling in German and English on topics related to pregnancy, birth, parenting (including government benefits/rights, trauma, premature babies, stillbirth and miscarriage) as well as offers parents’ groups and classes.

Schwanger? Null Promille offers information on the topic of pregnancy and alcohol, for parents and their friends/family.

A babylotse, a “baby guide”, can offer advice and support for families in accessing social services and healthcare. They work at maternity clinics and medical practices across the country. Search “Babylotse [your city]” to find cooperating local health institutions.

For state-approved counseling centers for pregnancy questions, search “Staatlich anerkannte Beratungsstelle f. Schwangerschaftsfragen [your city]”. This portal may help.

Sexual & Reproductive Health

ProFamilia‘s 180 centers nationwide give advice on pregnancy, sexual and reproductive health, and family planning.

Familieplanung is a reproductive health information portal provided by the provided by the Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) covering pregnancy and childbirth, contraception, fertility, pregnancy conflict, accessing advice and help, and adolescent pregnancy. 

 

Crisis Centers

Girls’ shelters and institutions in NRW, including with intercultural focuses

At Frauen Info Netz gegen Gewalt you can search by postal code for local crisis centers and women & children’s shelters — languages spoken are also indicated.

The national Hilfe Telefon Gewalt gegen Frauen (Violence Against Women) offers free, anonymous counseling in 18 languages –> 08000 116 016

Searching Mutter-Kind Haus, Frauen helfen Frauen, or Frauen Notruf in your city will also turn up local resources.

 

Faith-Based

Caritas offers an online and a telephone counseling for all the families and parents looking for advice (Ukrainian translators available + information about pregnancy in German/Arabic and English/French here). 

Diakonie in Deutschland has counselling services for pregnant people and children. You can search for external counselling services for refugees and immigrants by postal code here.

Malteser organizes integration services for refugees and migrants.

BeReshith e.V offers a range of services and activities for Jewish women, including life counseling, support for migrant families and their integration, and educational seminars.

Aktionsundnis Muslimischer Frauen advises Muslim women in cases of discrimination. 

MINA e.V. is a social counselling center for Muslim women and families.

Refugees & People with a Migrant Background

Recognition of professional degrees and career counseling for women* with a migrant background can be found at Bildungs und Beratungskaravane e.V.

Agisra is an autonomous, feminist information and advice center by and for migrant women*, refugee women*, black women* and all those affected by racism and discrimination. The team speaks Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Bulgarian, German, English, French, Persian, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish, Saho, Urdu and Tigrinya. 

Armut und Gesundheit e.V. provides social counseling and help with the legal aspects of  the health and social services system.

Internationales Frauenzentrum Bonn offers individual and family counseling for binational couples, families, and refugees: Psychological (German, French, English), legal (German, Turkish and English), and general advice about life in Germany (German, Spanish, English).

DaMigra is the umbrella organization of migrant women*’s organizations .

 

FLINTA /LGBTQIA+

LesMigras offers offer multilingual counselling for Lesbians, Bisexual women, Trans*, Inter*, Non-Binary and Queer people on violence, discrimination, gender, police violence, and legal advice.

Queer Refugees Deutschland connects, supports, and advises queer LGBTQI+ refugees on different topics (legal issues, counselling, networking, etc.)

Schwulen Beratung Berlin is a counseling center for gay and bisexual men, trans* and inter* people, people living with HIV/Aids and their relatives or partners. They provide services in Arabic, English, French, Greek, Polish, Slovak, Spanish, Czech, Russian, and Turkish.