Who are we?
Family Consultant Association is found with the philosophy of “every human is valuable’ with cooperation of the different kinds of occupational groups and representatives. The collaboration that started in 2008 brought along a work stracture that is based on volunteering and willingness. Pioneering studies have been carried out with especially public institutions, universities and NGOs. The association have organized studies and workshops about family consultancy, child assessment tests, crysis death and mourning, game therapy, cognitive therapy, workshops with young people and children, usage of therapeutics cards, etc.
Family Counsellors Association has concentrated on projects alongside with trainings. “Gain Knowledge, get strength” to prevent early marriages, “Start Over- to support the runaway girls and their families, “Deriving the elder into the Family to protea the family tradition projea” within the scope of Grundvig Learning Partnership, to support the active growing old and to strengthen the bonds between generation; are some of the projects that are first to come our mind.

Why Human-Trafficking?
Family Consultant Association has founded a “station-type shelter house” with the common protocol with the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Antalya on 2009. There are 3 NGOs that work on Human-Trafficking in Turkey. Since Family Consultant Association’s foundation, 584 people have been interviewed, and 66 of victims have been supported with shelter, health and socio-psycholcgical service by being lodged in the shelter that belongs to the association.
The informations gathered during the studies with the victims of human-trafficking are not only shared in national and international congresses and symphosiums, but also papers and book chapters have published and association became an arbiter about this topic.
Family Consultant Association have been organizing workshops and trainings on the national level about awareness and informing which utilizes 1830 Social Workers, Social Working Academics and Undergraduate Students intensively on definition of human-trafficking, legal dimension, interview techniques with victims and psycho-social situation of the victims.
Power of Civil Society to Combat Human Trafficking Project;
Human-trafficking is a complete violation of human rights and one of the biggest threats that damages human honor. An organized and global crime, but the question is why the traders do not give up on this crime despite the fact that it is punishable with the heaviest legal punishments. Because this sector derives a huge profit to the traffickers.
There are different kinds of human trafficking as sexual exploitation, child-trafficking, forced labor and organ trade, etc. Nevertheless, people think sexual exploitation when it comes to humantrafficking, we face forcing children begging, using them in crime and child marriages increasingly each and every day.
Because of the fact that our association is one of the three organizations which carry out studies about human-trafficking, providing shelter service for victims, having project experience on this field, its project team’s trainings and having the scientific studies are the strengths. Family Counsellors Association which has many pros, has a team that are experts in their field in national and international scope, has decided to write the project.
Completed activities:
• Focus Group Discussions and In-depth Interviews; As part of project activities

, NGOs that bring services to the disadvantageous groups in Turkey have been spotted and asked for help to join the focus group discussions. With that study, it’s provided to meet the NGOs that can be worked with closely and the opportunity to tell them the work of association have been taken. By having the focus group discussions in Germany and Greece, the opportunity to meet the NGOs which work on human-trafficking has been provided. The representatives of those NGOs that can contribute to the project have been met and a communion ensured about which topics that they can share experiences of.
Capacity analysis, capacity development and creating national network that form the main base of the project were investigated individually. Capacity analysis study contributed to spot a lot of information about human-trafficking which have been newly pthered. Because of this fact, the data acquired on capacity analysis study have been published in Turkish, English, German and Greek.
There have been 3 successive tranings organized within the capacity development studies. These are “briefing and awareness’ “creating network” and “advocating and lobbying” studies. Workshops with active attendance ensured the information gathered in study permanent. Additionally, “the Acquisition Tree” which is developed by our association have been used. The Acquisition Tree; is a method developed to understand what the participants’ acquired from the trainings and what they’ve learnt during the project. Participants have written their views and kind messages on fruit papers which have been changed daily.
After the trainings, NGOs in Turkey have gathered together to create a national network. The issue of human-trafficking in Turkey, the existing system and what can each NGO can do about it have been discussed. Each NGO put what can they do in writing; as a resuit, NGOs’ missions were indentified to take part in “Standard Operational Procedures”.
• Case Management Document was developed to maintain the support given to the victim. Also, a book was written to be a reference guide which contains the presentations during the trainings.
Result
The main reason of this project’s success is the support that we were given by the participants and their devoted attendance from the beginning. The participants attended either from abroad or from domestic derived sessions full of information with their presentations and knowledge sharing. With the help of the workshops, we got the opportunity to discuss the and cases in detail and with the empathetic approach, we’ve seen that we have endogenized the victims’ traumas
Our hope is to increase the number of studies of this lovely group underthe light of gathered information and to help developing the national network.
As Family Counsellors Association; We are really thankful of your sharing, producing knowledge and openning your hearts. Take Care!
TURGAY, GÜNGÖR, YUSUF