Tips on finding mental health work in Hamburg

I am new to this site and hoping that their may be people living in Hamburg which may be able to offer me some good advice. I am a recently qualified and registered British Art Psychotherapist and moved to Hamburg last October. I have been learning German for the last 4 months and realise that the goal of mastering the language will take years. I would like to find employment here in Hamburg. I would be willing to work in any environment, my experience has covered mental health, prisoners, children and the elderly. Has anyone got advice or any ideas on how a non-German, basic German speaking person could find employment here in Hamburg?

many thanks for any information.
Danielle

Phew. Tough question.
I have the feeling that expats in Hamburg (most of them) blend in quite quickly, not like Munich where many of them stick mainly with the expats and even after many years of living in Germany don't speak much German. So if you are looking for a job where you mainly talk to people, this is going to be a challenge.

Do you have a licence to work as a therapist in Germany? That would help.
In Germany pretty everybody can work as a therapist, but if you have a licence (as in licence so that Krankenkassen/health insurance companies will pay your fees), it is much easier to find customers/patients. If you don't have such a licence people will have to pay out of their own pockets, and that makes it harder to find customers.
For a start (apart form all the paperwork with the officials, and sorry, I don't know who you would have to contact) you could contact self-help groups, there might be some with professional (paid) therapists, or that can give you at least some contacts.
There's an organisation called KISS - they are kind of a union of self help groups, supported by the state, I think they do have some groups in English and they also work with hospitals and rehab clinics.
A couple we are good friends with work in a rehab clinic, I will ask them if they have any more ideas.

Maybe you do some googling for "Hamburg Therapie Englisch" - or "Hamburg Selbshilfegruppen Englisch".

Good luck - and welcome to Hamburg

Talked to my friend and she gave me following contacts (all rehab, but might lead to further contacts, who knows):

LUKAS Suchthilfe
Nussknacker e.V.
Kajal
Ragazza

She said especially Ragazza might be looking for English speakers as they have lots of expats among their clientele.

Hope this helps a little.

Thank you so much!!
I will try all of them, who knows someone may be interested in what I have to offer.

Hi!

I have checked out and contacted the above organisations and sadly I received the following information back (sorry the translations were through the web):

Nussknacker e.V. reply: "we have many clients, who come from Turkey or Russia, but none from the English linguistic area. Therefore I thank you for your offer, for which we have however no use."

Ragazza reply: "thanks for interest in our mechanism. We are a never-thresh-wavy contact and approach place for prostituierende and drugs consuming women. We offer an offer variety, however we do not work therapeutically. Zurzeit are occupied with us also all places, therefore we cannot offer a job to you."

LUKAS Suchthilfe & Kajal have not answered yet, fingers crossed.

Have you tried KISS as well? They are a big organisation, maybe more likely to have something for you or at least to tell you who could help you.

I hope LUKAS will give you a positive reply, my friend gave me the contact for an English speaking friend, they definitely have English speaking therapists, but don't know if there's enough demand for a (pretty much) ONLY English speaking therapist. But it's worth a try. If you don't hear from them, just call them

Sorry the others couldn't help you.

Maybe it's generally a good idea to try and call people? If they don't have anything for you, at least you could ask if they have any idea who might be able to help you?